ARE we April Fools?

Waaaay back when I worked at a newspaper, I decided I would enter the Georgia Press Association's Humorous Column of the Year competition. My editor at the time told me I could, but not to be surprised if I didn't win. The competition was stiff, he warned me.

"It's like dropping a rose petal into the Grand Canyon," were his actual words.

So I entered. Nothing ventured, nothing gained. I forgot all about it.

Then, some months later, I got a notice that I had, gasp, won.

My rose petal had landed with a bang.

I got much the same response when I admitted to people that I was trying to get published. They patted me on the arm or the head or whatever socially acceptable body part they could easily get to and said, "That's nice, dear. Don't be disappointed."

For years, longer than some writers' journeys, shorter than others, I secretly nursed the idea that I was a fool. Who was I kidding? Maybe everyone was right.

I found April to be a particularly hard month, because that was the month I added up all my little tax deductions -- my paper, my printer ink, my Tyvek envelopes, my book purchases, my RWA dues, my internet usage. I dreaded the day the IRS would audit me and say, "You can't deduct this! You're not a real writer!"

Yes, I did finally get published, through a combination of luck and learning and pure cussedness.

Why am I telling you all this?

Because it's April. And somewhere out there is a non-writing spouse leaning over Turbo Tax and saying, "Honey, that's a lot of money you spent on your little hobby last year. We could take a vacation with all that money."

Don't give up. Do you hear me? Do not even think about giving up.

This isn't some hobby that can easily be swapped out for snorkeling off the Great Barrier Reef. If you're anything like me, your writing is a big, chunk of who you really are. And who you are? Well, that's the last thing you should give up.

But don't I get enough exercise by juggling this many irons?

I've been blessed/cursed all my life with being skinny. When I was six years old, I weighed 36 pounds and was 36 inches high. In high school, I hovered around the 68 pound mark. When I donned my wedding gown, I weighed 72-freakin'-pounds, and no, I did NOT wear the flower girl dress. But I could have.

Fast forward. Yep, that's right. Past the gall bladder surgery, where they took out the offensive gall bladder and put in an appetite. Past the adoption of The Kiddo. Past the giving up of the newspaper job where I walked everywhere, and past the jobs where I, ahem, basically warm a chair all day long. (I'm productive. I am. I just get a lot done from command central.) Past the time where my free-time was spent working to meet editor deadlines and revisions and, oh, that new book proposal. Past my big 4-0 b-day.

I am now a whopping 98 pounds.

Yeah. I heard that snort. It was, "She thinks she has a weight problem?"

It's not so much of a weight problem. It's a jiggle problem. And a belly problem (I've been told that good southern ladies like me shouldn't refer to our body parts in the same way one would refer to livestock body parts, but, hey. You can't call my tummy anything BUT a belly.)

So I should exercise. Twenty minutes a day, right?

WRONG. Now to completely overload my guilty-exercising-avoiding-conscience comes a new study which says we women should exercise 60 minutes a day to avoid packing on the pounds.

The study comes via two very interesting blogs: Steph in the City and Fitness: A Journey, Not A Destination.

Now, Karen Evans, who writes about the study in detail, does quibble with it. She makes very valid points. And Steph is right when she says it's just depressing.

What I want to know is where on EARTH I will find 60 minutes a day to exercise. That's not even touching the motivational issues or the how-bad-the-belly-looks-in-yoga-pants problem. Because, lemme tell you, I'm sacrificing sleep to The Kiddo and to The Writing, and I got no more sleep to sacrifice.

I guess, though, I should forgive myself. If I can do 20 minutes a day, it's better than zip a day. Heck, if I can do 20 minutes a week, it's better than zip, too. I'm coming to the conclusion that exercising (and general fitness) is a lot like writing. A little every day will add up over the long haul, and the cumulative effect is to make it easier.

Besides, when I'm an old woman, I'll wear purple yoga pants and have LOTS of time to exercise. :-)

And Be A Villain

Last week, I was the Wicked Witch of the West.

No, I didn't recently join my friendly neighborhood coven (is there one??) and I'm not involved in Little Theatre. I'm a mom, and The Kiddo wanted to take her 300-buck DS on a field trip, despite the fact that the school handbook says no electronics on school property. Last time I checked, a school bus was school property.

From 5 p.m. (when The Husband called and put The Kiddo on the phone to ask if he could run her out to Wally-World and buy her an iPod to take with her the next day) until 9:30 p.m., there was much wailing and gnashing of teeth. Basically it sounded something like, "Whhhhhhyyyyyy? All my friends are going to have electronics! You have an iPod! Whhhhhhyyyyyy? I just wanna diiiiiiieeee."

It started back up at 6:30 the next morning.

My standard response was: "Hey, it sucks, and it's not fair. But my no means no."

It got me thinking. Villains get the short end of the stick so many times. We just paint them bad and unfeeling and cold-hearted (that's certainly how The Kiddo saw me). But they have their reasons. Yes, I know. Some of their reasons are so twisted they rival pretzels, but still, they have their reasons.

And if we can remember that, and include some of those complexities, then we'll wind up with villains who possess a bit more depth.

Plus, there's always the chance that someone will tell me that The Kiddo only thinks I'm the Wicked Witch of The West, while in reality, I'm being the wonderfully consistent, wonderfully firm parent that she needs. Because let's face it. The Kiddo won't be saying anything like that until she's probably 100.

I got my MFA at the cineplex

What can this guy (the fellow with the supercilious smirk and the cool specs) teach a writer about writing?

Okay, okay. So my title has already ticked off all the MFA survivors out there, and the Dude in Black is probably a male model who knows beans about directing. Bear with me.

I love movies. I love television. Yeah, I'm a writer, and I admit that. I love both movies and television because I love, love, love a story. I am addicted to stories, and I'm not picky about format, though I am picky about quality and authors.

The greatest thing since sliced bread, when it comes to movies today, is the bonus parts of a DVD. The director's commentary -- oooh. So helpful, but time-consuming. I seldom have time to watch a movie once, much less twice. And then there are the deleted scenes.

Deleted scenes are the bestest things (yes, I know, no such word as bestest). I save them for last, when I've watched the movie and have decided whether it's a thumbs-up or thumbs-down. If it's a thumbs-down, I weep momentarily for the wasted time that I shall never get back.

Thumbs-up? I jump on those deleted scenes like a puppy on a pair of Manolo Blahnik stilettos. It is amazing to see what the director thought he (or she) needed while in the throes of creativity, and then decided, eh, newp.

And usually the decision is pulverizingly, obviously right. The scene was just so much fluff and didn't propel the story on.

Writers (uh, I'm talking to me, now) can learn a thing or two from that.

First, I shouldn't mind the effort of creating a scene that may well later be axed. Maybe I needed to write that sucker in order for me to better understand the character. Or the setting. Or the backstory. After all, at least it didn't cost me film and the salaries of a movie crew and movie stars.

Second, sometimes you don't know what you don't need until you've processed everything. That's why they chop scenes at the editing stage.

Third, like any good lab rat, I can learn from my mistakes (well, theoretically, anyway.) Maybe I can realize, as I'm writing (or better yet, as I'm planning!), that I don't need to bog the reader down in a scene that is only important to me and to my understanding of the world I'm creating.

Probably this will happen when I also find oil under the petunias and subsequently spend my days on a beach with a cute waiter bringing cool drinks and delicious munchies. But a girl can dream, no?

Friday Awwwww Moment

Found this on the web (it seems to be popping up in several places, so I'm not sure just who to give credit to.

But a kitty is an all-time best-ever writing buddy, no? (Unless you have an attack Flame-Point Siamese who demands, "Pay attention to me, or I'll chew your laptop's AC adapter cord in two." But that's another story!)

Oh, I SO love good news!

See that beeeee-yooou-ti-ful book cover there beside this entry? Well, that just happens to be the debut YA book of a friend of mine, the best plot-hole-puncher in the known universe, Nelsa Roberto. She got her real, honest-to-goodness author copies this week. Squee!

I feel rather attached to Illegally Blonde. I saw it in its raw and unshaped form (which looked pretty darn-tootin' good to me even then.) I saw it before she got her agent, before she got her publishing deal. I knew it was a great book then, and I can ASSURE you that it is a wonderful book now.

Illegally Blonde is available for pre-order at Barnes & Noble (and pick up a cool 5% discount, just like yours truly), and all your usual on-line book outlets. It's officially on sale and available March 30.

It's also available via that dying breed, your independent book seller. (I say "your" because I do not have an independent book seller available to me.") I so wish these guys weren't going the way of the Dodo (but that is another blog post entirely.)

Go. Pre-order. Now.

Well? What are you waiting for?!

Why I Write

I skimmed a very interesting interview about The INTERN (interview here, INTERN's blog here), and one comment in it made me think:

"In the case of her fiction and poetry: realistically, INTERN probably writes because writing has always yielded more positive strokes for her than any other pursuit—much as a rat will keep pressing the button that gives it the most candy."

The quote brings to mind the first time that I decided being a writer would be cool. I was about nine or ten, bored out of my head during summer vacation, and I'd run out of books to read and games to play with my cousin. I came up with an elaborate pretend "game" where we were the staff writers for a magazine. I dimly recall that I wrote a piece on Mozart, and my cousin wrote a piece on the game of marbles. (It was an eclectic magazine, you see.)

The grown-ups oohed and ahhed (mainly because we weren't making a mess, probably), but at that time, something just clicked. I was good at something!

Amazing. The kid who couldn't hit a beach ball with a tennis racket, the kid who had no rhythm, the kid who was so clutzy that she'd trip over her shoe laces even if they were tied, that kid was finally good at something.

I wonder just how many of our best-selling authors today wound up where they are because they were like me: can't dance, can't sing, can write a little.

Why meeeee?

Doesn't the little guy I've used here look cute? He completely sums up my feelings today, so cue the violins!

Today, I have jury duty. The Husband never has jury duty, whereas I have served on at least two juries and been called for countless others during my married life.

The problem with jury duty is that you have to show up, even if, at the end of the day, you're not called because the defendants in question decide that, hey, all the potential jurors look like a hanging jury and they'll take their chances requesting mercy from Hizzoner.

Still, I never fail to come away from jury duty without at least one good book idea (but that's nothing. I find it hard to shut the Idea Engine off, much to the chagrin of my friends and family).

So maybe I will come up with THE hook that will develop into THE book that will ... shoot, I can't come up with anything that rhymes with hook and book. I'm a writer, not a poet!

Wish me luck!

Life gets in the way. Superstition to the rescue?

(Yeah, I know it's not Thanksgiving, but hey, this was too cute an illustration of supersition to pass up! Thanks to Paula Becker for the hilarious picture!)

I intended to write this weekend. I had a hot date with my hero, who was finally talking to me (because, most likely, I was talking to him). Life, however, had different plans.

My daughter's first-ever, oldest gold fish died.

I am not kidding. This is not a riff off the-dog-ate-my-homework excuse. My daughter was prostrate with grief, and every time I thought that things were going to be okay and that she was beginning to give herself permission to move on, bam! More fat tears rolled down The Kiddo's face.

So I had to give myself permission: permission that this weekend, family came first and hot dates with heroes would have to wait.

I feel guilty when I don't write, not to mention terrified, because a nagging doubt still dogs me: what if the words stop coming?

Ha! I've been creating stories out of whole cloth since way before junior high.

Still, we writers are as superstitious as any major league baseball player.

When I was writing the first draft of the novel that eventually became my first published novel, I wore the same shirt every night to ward off the cold (my cold intolerance is legendary). It was my sister's shirt, a fuzzy flannel one that she'd left by accident at my house during a vist.

I'd pull that sucker on atop the other many layers I wore, hunch down and let the words fly from my fingertips. No matter what subtle hints my sister sent my way, I wasn't relinquishing custody of that shirt.

Finally, when the subtle hints stopped being, well, so subtle, I had to confess. I laughed it off, knowing in my logical, rational brain that superstition is all bunk.

"But, hey, why rock the boat, huh? And it, uh, it keeps me warm!" I told her.

My sister cocked one eyebrow. "Yeah, and if I had it, it would keep ME warm."

I've heard other writers confess their funny little rituals. What's some of yours?

Eventually I did return the shirt, after, of course, the draft was complete. I did it in an amazingly short time. Hmmmh. Now, I'm wondering if maybe I should go pilfer through my sister's closet ...

Letho - what??

Writers, like your car mechanic and your plumber and your handy-dandy carpenter, have tools. We don't carry them in big tool chests, but they're all tucked away just the same.

Our tools are words. Sounds simple enough. You sit down at the computer. You play on FB for a little while. You update your blog. Then, with a twirl of your fingers that a concert pianist would envy, you set yourself to the task of assembling words into sentences, and sentences into paragraphs, and paragraphs into -- okay, okay. You just want the short version, don't you?

Non-writers in my family think I never have any trouble with my words (except when I'm regaling them with a story of my catastrophe du jour. Then they quibble over the length.) After all, I must know a lot of words. I was the nerdy little kid who entertained herself by reading the dictionary on rainy days.

What they don't know is that I FORGET a lot of words. Have you ever been writing along, really crusing into the scene, and then, bam! You need a word. Not just any word, but THAT word, that pulverizingly precise word, the one that is itching and twitching at the tip of your tongue -- er, fingers.

You can remember all sorts of synonyms, but they are like all so many discarded wannabe wedding dresses. They're just not the ONE.

Whenever I get like this, all writing comes to a screeching halt. I'll pick up dictionaries and dust off my Roget's Thesaurus. I'll remember a book that I read that used (maybe, anyway) that word, and I'll pick it up and flip through it. I'll remember how the word can be used in a lot of contexts and then I'll find OTHER books that MAYBE have the one, beautiful, shiny word in it.

I'll know it when I see it, but I can't for the life of me remember it.

At this point, I'll get panicky. Am I losing it? Is this a sign of the old brain slipping? Am I suffering from the early stages of dementia? Then if I'm really desperate (and let's face it, a writer who can't write can be pretty desperate), I'll start asking friends and family.

They hate this. After all, if I can name a dozen synonyms, why, they wonder, can't I just use one of THOSE words?

Because, because, because.

I never knew that there was an actual name for this disorder. But recently I learned that the word "lethologica" describes the state of not being able to remember the word you want.

Ah-ha. Now, it seems, I have another word that I can sort of remember the meaning of, but I can't, dagnabbit, remember the actual WORD.

Crash-and-burn-a-vision

Sorry that the blog went dark yesterday. The morning started out all wrong, the day proceded unwaveringly in that direction, and it ended with me being eternally grateful that when I lay down last night, the bed did not fall under me.

Part of yesterday's doom and gloom was the news that I was to be interviewed on TV for part of my day-job.

(Brief pause while I tend to the hives I broke out in upon hearing such news.)

I do not like cameras, at least not being on the lens side of a camera. Not film cameras. Not Polaroid cameras. Not digital cameras. Not cell phone cameras. And most definitely NOT video cameras.

Some people, it can be said, perform flawlessly in such situations. They sound intelligent, as though they have a brain. They sound like the guy on the six-o'clock news.

I am not some people.

On the TV performance scale, where you have an Emmy-award-winning star on one end while on the other, a hick witness to a tornado, I fall most definitely toward the hick witness end of the spectrum. Oh, yeah, put a microphone and a camera in front of me after a tornado touches down, and my first instinct is to prattle, "It went off like a bomb, it did. Just outta nowhere, and there goes Aunt Mabel's washing machine and her nighties, too, off in the clear, blue sky."

Which is not to say that I have not worked hard to overcome such propensities. Unfortunately, every single blasted one of my day jobs have, at one time or another, forced me in front of a camera. I have learned to talk more like the six-o'clock news guy and less like the hick witness he's interviewing.

The camera guy always says, "Just act natural, and you'll do fine."

Trust me. The LAST thing he wants is me "acting natural."

Battling with printers

Yes, I know, I know, my blog post is late, but I have been in a to-the-death grudge match with a printer.

I was planning to blog about something else entirely. I'm so steamed from paper jams and error messages and printers taking so long with "initializing" that I didn't get lunch until 2 p.m.

Things could be worse. I could be purple with ditto machine ink, or black and blue from carbons, or sliced with papercuts from separating yards and yards of dot matrix paper. I love, love, love being able to change one word on a page and not having to correct all the pages thereafter. And yes, I AM old enough to remember a ditto machine. So I should really be grateful for printers.

Printers and I, however, have never gotten along very well. Maybe it's because I so seldom print anything out. Most of my pages stay as neat little kilobytes on a computer file (backed up, naturally). So the time comes for me to do a massive printing job, and I find myself cursing and kicking and whining -- with a background of soulful violins accompanying my sob story.

Maybe it's because I don't use them that often and I'm completely unfamiliar with them. I like to think more dramatically, though. When I am in the throes of agony, I am CERTAIN that inside that innocuous gray and black box resides a forked-tail little red devil, tee-heeing every time he sticks his prongs into the mechanism and creates yet another paper jam. He dines on printer ink and sips on my tears of frustration.

Boy, after all my frustration, does he need to take some Maalox today!

Talking to Oneself

You remember that classic scene out of ROMANCING THE STONE, don't you? The opening scene where it's a race between Joan Wilder's wrap up of her manuscript and her supply of tissues?

To refresh your memory:

Grogan: What's it gonna be, Angelina?
Joan Wilder: [voiceover] It was Grogan: the filthiest, dirtiest, dumbest excuse for a man west of the Missouri River.
Grogan: You can die two ways: quick like the tongue of a snake, or slower than the molasses in January.
Joan Wilder: [voiceover] But it was October.
Grogan: I'll kill you, bleep, if it's the Fourth of July! Where is it? Uhh. Get over there!
Joan Wilder: [voiceover] I told him to get out, now that he had what he came for.
Grogan: Not quite.
[spits]
Grogan: Take 'em off. Do it! Come on!
[Angelina kills Grogan by throwing a concealed knife]
Joan Wilder: [voiceover] That was the end of Grogan... the man who killed my father, raped and murdered my sister, burned my ranch, shot my dog, and stole my Bible!

I admit it, there are worse fates than to be yanked into a Columbian treasure hunt with Michael Douglas ... as long as it ends Happily Ever After.

But the only things I have in common with the fictional Joan Wilder are that I am a writer, and that, er, I talk to myself as I'm writing.

It is a sort of new realization. One recent Saturday, The Kiddo was putting on some sort of Barbie Fashion Show in her room while I was working on my current MS in my room.

I was all snugged up with my laptop, and finally the story was beginning to flow. The explanation for this sudden "click" didn't dawn on me. I didn't care WHY my characters were finally talking again; I was just glad of it!

And then The Kiddo popped her head around the door jam. "Mommy?"

"Hmh?" Still engrossed, hadn't really looked up, DETERMINED to finish the thought before it escaped.

"Were you talking on the phone?"

"Nu-uh," I muttered. A few more keystrokes, and I'd finish this elusive paragraph.

"Well, who were you talking to, then?"

Paragraph screeched to a halt. I looked up. "I wasn't talking."

She raised her eyebrow and gave me a squint-eye she could have only learned from her mother. "Yes, you WERE."

And then it hit me. The reason my characters were talking was that, ahem, I was talking for them.

What's Good About Being Insulted?

Okay, so the title is for dramatic effect. Hey, I'm a writer. Sue me. :-)

We writers are often portayed as thin-skinned "artistic types" who can't handle anyone messing around with our "art." Honestly, though, most of the serious writers I know understand that we need to have skin rivaling a rhino's.

True, nobody likes to be told that her hero is rude or that her heroine is inhospitable (uh, both criticisms yours truly got this weekend via beta readers and critiques partners, in the interest of FULL and messy disclosure). I admit that my first reaction is, "Mmmph! Didn't they READ what I wrote?"

However, that's just the first few seconds' reaction. What it really amounts to is projected anger: I'm disgruntled more with MYSELF that they couldn't see the image or the character as I saw it in my head. In other words, what we have here is a failure to communicate.

If you can reframe your thinking, realizing that your frustration is that the reader didn't get the message you were sending, then it's easier to go back and tinker with your work. You realize, "Ah-ha! This is what made my CP or beta reader think my hero was rude!"

Usually, as in real life when someone takes offense, it's one teensy, tiny little thing. Change it, and bam, your character's been totally rehabilitated.

This "what needs fixing" approach lends itself to any sort of criticism, unless the criticism is meant in a less-than-constructive way. No, I'm not perfect at receiving criticism (just ask The Husband. On second thought, DON'T!). But I like to think that, after all these years of understanding how valuable critique partners are, I've learned something in writing that applies itself to Real Life.

And God bless those CPs and Beta Readers! I couldn't get anything done without having them reading over my shoulder!

Awwww!

Okay, it's Friday, and we all need an awwww moment! This pix is stolen from . Now, go home and kiss your baby giraffe!

The real secret to writing

Forget talent. Forget the ability to string together lovely words. Forget life experiences out the wazzoo. Forget all the tips you hear about eavesdropping at Wal-Mart.

The real secret to writing? Space, baby. Lots and lots of space.

Notice I did not say "time." We writers are forevermore saying, "Oh, give me time to write!"

But what we really need is the mental space to focus inward, on our characters, on those lovely words, on that delightful insight we overheard at Wal-Mart.

Physical space is also critical. That means the fam being able to actually function without interrupting you 90 gajillion times to ask the whereabouts of something that if they'd put up themselves to begin with, they'd know where it was.

But just like a ringing phone is the universal signal for babies to cry and dogs to bark and cats to scratch at the door, reaching for that laptop is the signal that a race for Mom's space is about to start.

I have to admit, most times, if I just ask, my little household is good about giving me space.

So maybe I should ask for it more often, hmh?

(The cute pix above was taken by a friend of mine, Bill Ricks. I couldn't help but add the caption. I'm sure he would have chosen something less humorous, but hey, finders, keepers, right?)

I miss purple Garfields

Yesterday, as I sat in my dentist's chair, watching The Kiddo color the Garfield coloring sheet they gave her to keep her occupied, I realized that I missed purple Garfields.

I watched The Kiddo as she carefully colored within the lines, choosing the orange Crayola to properly color in the famous fat cat. Two or three years ago, The Kiddo would have dispensed with conventional wisdom and gone with purple or pink or some other wild color. And she would have not bothered to color within the lines.

But thanks to public school and dozens of grown-ups (not me, never me) telling her that the sky should be blue and the sun should always be a yellow circle, this time Garfield was his traditional orange.

I thought about that move toward safety in conventionality, thought about how it might apply to writers.

When we first start out, most of us don't know the rules. We don't know the jargon. We just throw words on the page with the abandon of a pre-schooler scribbling Garfield purple. The rush that gives us is indescribable.

But then we learn. We learn about plot points and hooks and blurbs and character development and how celebrity and athlete heroes never sell.

So we opt for the safe road.

Sure, our writing improves on some levels. Now we are paying attention to format and our highpowered sales exec hero isn't bashful and shy because we know that he wouldn't have gone into sales if he hadn't been a people person to begin with.

But we worry. As that cursor flashes, we find ourselves worrying if we've picked the RIGHT shade of orange for our Garfields. We obsess about format and plot and motivation as carefully as any third grader worries about neatly coloring in the lines.

Yes, we have to conform. Publishing is a business, after all. But let's not forget that wild feeling of power we had when we decided that Garfield SHOULD be purple.

The oldest argument on earth

Ok, well, the second oldest, anyway, and the Permed-Dachshund and the Serious Attack Kat keep it alive. Here, the war is over the beloved arm of the sofa, and it looks like the Serious Attack Kat has maintained a firm grip on the high ground.

(And, yes, thank you, my migraine IS better! Yay! One more day, and I'll feel like writing again!)

Today I Won't Even Try

I am a migraineur ... one of the 28 million or so Americans who suffer from migraines. Lucky for me, I (a) don't have them very often, and (b) have warning "auras" before the sledgehammer pain and acute light sensitivity kick in.

Unlucky for me, today is a migraine day. Actually, it's Day 2, and you know how sequels stink.

So I give you, from http://rulingcatsanddogs.com (WHY WON'T MY LINK THINGIE WORK TODAY OF ALL DAYS???!!!???), my best writing/life advice EVAH:

Mighty Dog

Christmas 2009, I made the VAST mistake of telling The Kiddo that we could adopt a stray dog that was hanging out at a local store. When said stray had, er, strayed, and as I was faced by a torrent of tears and "but you SAIDs," I made another rash promise: to find her a dog.

It's not like we didn't already have a dog, a big old chocolate Labrador impersonating a Rottweiler. The Kiddo, however, wanted a LITTLE dog. A dog that was JUST hers.

I can admit, now that I'm fab and forty and all grown up and have embraced the philosophy of embracing one's limitations, that I am more of a cat person than a dog person. Don't get me wrong -- I like dogs.

Cats, however, are self-contained and not so needy. They don't call that guilt-inducing look dogs give you "puppy eyes" for nothing.

I'd promised, though, so we got a dog. It's a dachshund/poodle mix -- think a weiner dog with a perm. She's a cute little gal, and wouldn't you know it? The dog has bonded more with me than anybody else. She curls up on my feet at night. She follows every step I make. She won't go out for anybody else, and if it's raining, forget it. Even I can't make her go out very easily. She pulls the old "puppy eyes" trick on me. "Hey, lady," she seems to be saying, "would YOU go potty in the rain?"

Rain is one thing, but snow is quite another. She loves snow (as does the Kiddo, but that's to be expected.) We had a rare "snow event" in February, and a friend of mine caught this pix of her ... shouldn't she be wearing a red cape with a big M for Mighty Dog?

Forget the experts, I'm in need of an intervention

Dang the invention of the DVR. Pre-DVR, I was such a techno-fumblefingers that there was no way I could program my VCR's clock, much less schedule recording shows and making sure I had a blank tape in there.

But oh, the ease that my DVR provides. With one click of a button, I can record a whole series of programs that I have no business watching because I should be writing in that 45-minute time span.

I can't resist, though. Criminal Minds whispers into my head things like, "Sheesh, what smart plot twist will they come up with next?"

I have to admit, I've long been a sucker for a serial killer novel. (I know, weird. I write romance and women's fiction, but when I grow up, I wanna be Tess Gerritsen.) I don't like horror, however I love to have the willies scared out of me by a good writer.

I'm also a sucker for an ensemble cast. I lie to myself and say that it shows me how you can reveal a lot about a character through showing (in tiny little tidbits) and not telling. Really, though, I watch it for the characters as much as the plot.

Criminal Minds is the best of both worlds, which is strange, because for ages I ignored the show. I thought it was about crimes told from the point of view of, I dunno, criminals. But then one day I was home, alone, and there was Season One on A&E, a marathon. Omigosh, but I was hooked. Thus began my relationship with my DVR.

I have been entirely too OCD about managing this addiction. I have a list of all the Criminal Minds episodes, and as I watch one, I strike it off. Currently, thank goodness, I have managed to watch all of Season One, all but one episode of Seasons 2 and 3, with a few from Season 4 and Season 5 still to bag. I admit, I'm looking forward to the time when all that I have waiting for me on my DVR is the one new episode a week.

I Need An Expert

Despite what The Husband says, I do NOT think I'm the end-all, be-all Genius of Our Time. My head full of useless trivia (such as hallux is the name of the big toe, and that the Pluto we know wasn't Mickey Mouse's original dog) must annoy the stew out of him. Especially when I can spout off stuff like that, and yet admit that, "uh, I forgot the dry-cleaning. Again."

As it happens, there's a lot of stuff I DON'T know. I learn that every time I begin a new book (like now! Wee! I'm in love! Stay tuned to see if It Will Last.) That's when the yawning chasm of my continued ignorance can't be ignored, as I'm trying to figure out the answer to The Big Question (Will My Plot Hold Water?!?!)

Oh, I start out with the easy internet search, and that leads to another three or four hours bouncing from one site to another. But so much of the internet these days has fallen prey to C&Pitis ... someone has copied and pasted until the whole big Google search result is the exact same thing, or most of it anyway.

That's when I start e-mailing people I know AND people I don't know. Right now, for instance, I'm in need of the answer to one simple question about public defenders in Georgia. (Yeah, yeah, that one question will be like the heads of Hydra: once slain, it will produce two more questions.)

Most of the time, complete and total strangers will be nice enough to help out. They read my sincere question and my sincere promise that I will put them in my acknowledgements and move onto my sincere(ly outdated) website. And then they'll throw me a bone.

This time? With lawyers? Not so much. Not a single bite to my respectful entreaties. So ... guess it's back to figuring out who I know who knows someone else who knows someone else. I've heard it said that we're all just two people away from getting/finding out anything we want.

But if you know a little something-something about public defenders in Georgia, by all means, let me know! I promise! You're a shoo-in for my acknowledgements page!

Coming out of Lurkdom With Some Good News

Yes, I have been silent since October. But ...

My mom got sick.

My mom passed away.

I got sick.

I survived, but I had to have a money-ectomy to do so.

Yeah, it's been that kind of winter.

Still, it's wonderful, wonderful news that inspires me to blog again ... my uber-talented friend Tawna Fenske just, gasp, landed a three-book deal with Sourcebooks!

This gal is so phenomenal that I knew she would be published one day. When it comes to writing, she's had about as bad luck as I've had this winter, but I never gave up the faith that she would one day be able to give me an autographed book.

She's funny and witty and can create the most quirky, loveable characters ... you're gonna adore 'em, I swear. Her first book is due out August 2011, none too soon for me.

Tawna's rollercoaster story of ups and downs is a testament to the amount of perseverance you need in this business, that's for sure. She has done the best darn impersonation of a cockle-burr I've ever known, sticking to her dreams, continuing to try even when the bottom fell out on her. And that, my friends, is what it takes in this business -- talent, perseverance, and a terric agent like Michelle Wolfson! Woo-hoo!

I want my minutes back

Is there anything more frustrating than trying to deal with your cell phone company???

My current phone is one of the oldie-but-goodies, with no Qwerty keyboard. So it's a pain to text anything on. I'm supposedly eligible for a FREE upgraded phone. Supposedly -- but I have tried and failed.

I have spent all morning trying to fix my upgrade order (an order which also ate the better part of a morning). The first phone I ordered was back-ordered — I figure since it was free, it is a bait and switch deal. So I decided that I would swallow the bait and order another one that I actually had to pay for. Only, since The Dear Husband is the primary account owner, he had to call and give permission to change my phone order.

Then I carefully researched phones, chose one and called and waited and waited for “the next available representative,” only to be told that the phone I wanted required a stripped down data plan. So then she suggested I order another phone, for $49, but I’d have to change my plan, as it would not work. She assured me the plan was the same price.

Only, when I went to do it, it totaled an extra $10 a month — for no more benefit. Aaargh.

So then I called BACK and waited and waited and waited, only to have another guy try to explain how the new plan really WASN’T ten bucks a month extra, but you had to order it a different way. Riiiiighht. Color me cynical, but I’m still trying to apply new math, old math, any sort of math to make it work out.

Finally I got frustrated beyond belief at the amount of time I’d wasted on this, asked if the other phone I’d ordered (and was apparently in eternal backorder) would work on my current plan. "Yes," he said, sounding disappointed. I figured that if he sounded disappointed, it must mean I was choosing wisely for my pocketbook.

"OK," I said. "Let’s just go back to that one." I may never get the phone, but if I do, it’s free, and it will work with my current plan.

One thing I won’t ever get back is the time I could have spent writing this morning. Wonder if I could send the wireless company a bill for Premium Weekend Writing Minutes consumed ...

Ben Franklin Rests In Peace Again

Well, I say he is. I'd been following on various blogs and websites the travesty of Philadelphia's libraries being threatened with closure. The day of doom was to have been Oct. 2.

Public libraries closing? In Philadelphia? Where Ben Franklin, the first person to open a lending library, lived?

I'd thought it was bad enough that my own library had begun closing at 2 p.m. on Saturdays. But to not have a library at all? Yikes.

I credit public and school libraries for helping feed my voracious reading habit. As a relatively poor kid, I found my reading pace outstripping my wallet's ability to pay for books. The library is where I find new authors and try them out before I put them on my auto-buy list. When I need to research something, I go to my library. It's where I find the audio-books that I must have if I'm going to drive any distance at all.

The best part about public libraries is their egalitarian spirit. Anyone with a library card can check out a book -- any book they like. And mid-list authors' books cozy up to the volumes of best-sellers with no threat of returns to publishers.

Libraries aren't just another line item in a budget, to be slashed in hard economic times, even if some elected officials seem to think so. I'm glad to know that Philadelphia's bibliophiles fought back and won -- and the libraries in the city continue to be open to the public.

Wood On The Fire

Michael Jordan can teach a girl a lot about writing.

Well, not writing per se, but the pursuit of dreams and goals. That's what writing is all about.

Last night I sat down with my husband, a die-hard Michael Jordan fan (he followed him when Michael had hair and played for North Carolina), to listen to Jordan's acceptance speech at the Hall of Fame ceremony.

I've always considered Jordan to be a class act, so at first, his neener-neener speech was kind of ... off-putting. He talked about how he got his competitive spirit. That spirit had its roots in proving other people wrong. He talked about how, when he got cut from the varsity high school basketball team, he wanted to prove that his coach had made a big mistake.

Other naysayers along his path had been, as he put it, "wood on the fire." Basically, his acceptance speech, except for one very kind comment about teammate Scotty Pippen, was one how-do-you-like-me-now remark after another.

Or it was at first blush.

About halfway through it, I realized his speech wasn't just a "neener-neener." He really was thanking them. He was admitting that, if they hadn't told him what he was after was impossible, that he wasn't good enough, he wouldn't have become Michael Jordan.

Huh. Now that was enlightening for a girl like me. It occurred to me that some of the biggest moves I'd made in life were in response to people who said, "Ennnh. Can't be done."

People told me only rich kids went to college. I won a full honors scholarship and graduated magna cum laude.

An editor told me that I shouldn't enter the Georgia Press Association's competition for Best Humorous Column. "It'd be like dropping a rose petal in the Grand Canyon," he said. I did, and I won first place the very first year I entered.

My husband told me it would take me three years to finish a book for the first time. I finished it in three months.

My husband rolled his eyes when I pointed to the First Sale Column in the Romance Writers Report and told him my name was going to be in there one day. "Right," he said. "Keep dreaming." Two months later, my name was in black and white.

Unlike Michael Jordan, I didn't realize that what goosed me was proving naysayers wrong. I'd thought all this time I needed warm and fuzzy affirmations from those around me. I thought negativity was bad for you, that it would tear you down and kill your spirit.

And maybe it would. But something else happened this very month that tells me maybe MJ is onto something.

My daughter, bless her heart, came home with a fundraiser for school, three-pound tubs of refrigerated cookie dough at fourteen bucks a pop. The brochure came with incentive prizes: sell twelve items and you get to go to a Mega Party. Sell thirty items and you get a chance to spin the money wheel. Sell an impossible amount and you get to take a lunch-time ride in a limo.

That's a lot of dough. BOTH kinds of dough.

We live in a small town, and having a product that you can't sell easily to out-of-town friends and family makes it dang hard. It's even harder when every kid in the elementary school is selling the same thing. I told the Kiddo, "Sweetie, don't get your hopes up. People can't really afford to buy cookie dough at $14 a pop. I just don't think you'll make the Mega Party."

She cried. I cried. I admit I did the dumb thing and called the superintendent and fussed at him for ever allowing such a fundraiser go forward.

But she didn't give up hope. Every afternoon, she got her dad to take her around to peddle her cookie dough. Yeah, she got some "no's." But so far she's gotten fourteen yeses. And she's made that Mega Party I didn't think she could attain. I guess I put wood on her fire.

I think, in light of Michael Jordan's speech and my daughter's success, I owe the school superintendent an apology ... and I need to rethink how I look at naysayers. I need to look at them as if they're wood on my fire.

Speechless, just speechless

I am speechless.

Well, voiceless to be more accurate. I am on day 3 of laryngitis so bad that I can emit nothing more than a whisper. I had NO idea that a person needed to talk as much as I apparently do. Now I know why two-year-olds throw temper tantrums – they get so tired of not being able to be understood!

It's the little things that will get you: say for instance, calling out the Kiddo's spelling words and going over her science study guide and her reading vocabulary. Last night I remembered that there were computer programs to “read” text, so I looked on my computer, and thank goodness, it was there. I typed in all of the Kiddo's science study guide for this week (on fossils) and her reading vocabulary words and her spelling words, and then I let the computer call it all out for her. I wish I had a portable computer to do my talking for me today.

And then there's negotiating dinner-table conversation. Last night I had to try to explain profit to the Kiddo. Can you imagine trying to explain profit to an 8-year-old using sign language and a notepad? Lovely.

This morning, the Kiddo wanted to take her lunch. Only we had lost her insulated lunch bag, and I couldn’t fit all the stuff she wanted into my old one, because I needed to put a dry ice pack into it (ham and mayo sandwich). If I’d had another Ziploc bag to put her grapes in, it would have all gone in, easy-peasy, but I was fresh out of bags save one. So finally after much tears (hers) and much frustration (mine) and a few more tears (mine, because I couldn’t talk and it was exhausting to carry on an argument with an 8-year-old in gestures), I wrapped the grapes in aluminum foil, the sandwich in aluminum foil and stuck her chips into the only Ziploc bag I had. (Can you tell I didn’t go grocery shopping this weekend??? And that nobody ELSE went grocery shopping for me, either???)

When You're A Celebrity ...

Cue the Brad Paisley song Celebrity.

In addition to my dayjob, in addition to my writing job, I've been writing a slice-of-life column for a small group of newspapers since about 1992. My picture (admittedly one of me that has a pretty good haircut and substantially less wrinkles and gray hair) is with it.

The column has given me some weird moments in my life. Complete strangers will come up to me and talk to me as if they know me -- and they reference details about my life, so they must know me, right?

But then they say something about my column, and I think, "Ah-ha!"

I'm flattered, believe you me. I'm not complaining. But it does create awkwardness.

For instance, yesterday I went to my mom's -- sans make-up, in need of a haircut like you wouldn't believe. Hey, at least I did change out of my yoga pants and into my jeans. Usually, I wouldn't, as my mom loves me for me, so I don't worry about what I look like.

As I was leaving, my mom asked me to take off her trash. No problem, I told her, there's a trash bin on my way.

Only, the powers that be had removed said trash bin. I went on home, resigned to dumping the trash at a bin near my house.

When I drove up, some folks were dumping THEIR trash. I knew I looked rather grim, but I girded my loins and popped the trunk latch. People didn't expect you to get all gussied up for a trip to the dumpster, right?

Just as I tossed the bags into the bin, one of the guys dumping HIS trash said, "Hey, you write that column, don't you?"

Guilty. I stood there while the very nice gentleman said wonderful things about my column. I don't think anybody prayed harder for the ground of a garbage dump to open up and swallow her than I did.

The ground did not open up. Instead, I got back in my car, looked in the rear view mirror and groaned. That guy was going to go home, tell his wife about meeting me and for sure say, "She doesn't look as nice as her picture in the paper."

Yikes. What are the odds?

Riding the rollercoaster

The last thing beaten out of most writers is the idea of turns and fairness. That usually happens just before they either quit writing or get The Call.

Writers, at least those of us in it for the long haul, view the craft of writing as an apprenticeship. You get in there, you write, you send it out to critique partners, you send it out to contests, you pitch it to agents, you read books on craft, you write some more. And somewhere along the way, if you're lucky, if you're good and working on getting better, you get your shot.

If you're part of a critique group whose members are intent on improving, the idea of "turns" takes hold when the first of you gets a partial request, and then a full, and then, praise heaven, an agent. And then it's swoon time when your bud gets The Call. You're happy! You're excited! Because soon it will be Your Turn.

And then comes another member's good luck and good writing and she gets The Call. You're still happy. You're still excited, maybe even more so, because surely, surely, Your Turn is next.

I have two friends, both who write so well it would blow your socks off. They've had so many close calls, it's not even funny. One writes women's fiction as well as any Marian Keyes book on the shelf. The other is the next Evanovich.

If they could only find the right editor.

Yesterday, my critique partner who writes funny, quirky, off-beat stories got the worst news. The editor at a big-time house who loved her voice ... passed.

It's happened before. They say the most amazing things about her. They compliment everything about her. She's funny, she's unique, she's got VOICE. Someone's going to be publishing her, and maybe it SHOULD be them, but ... it won't be them.

And I don't get it. Surely if it's anybody's turn, it's hers. She had a book deal, before I did even. She had a big-time agent that many in the biz would kill to get.

But the publishing house where she had her book deal closed the line -- JUST before her book was due out. And the Big Time Agent? Well, Big Time Agent did squat for her.

She fired Big Time Agent, went through the agony of getting another agent, which is harder, I think, than getting the FIRST agent. Her second agent is a wonderful woman who works her butt off for my friend. Things were looking up.

And then they WEREN'T. And then they WERE. And now they aren't again. And it's just no fair.

I don't know what to say to her. I just want her to be able to get off this rollercoaster from hell and someone hand her a publishing contract. Because I know, when she finally does sell, it's going to be HUGE. All those editors who passed now are then going to be scrambling, trying to find some wannabe writer who can write with HER voice, the voice THEY turned down.

Until then, well, it sucks to be her.

Now I know how editors feel

Karma is a witch. Well, that's the PG version, anyway.

Last night I wound up working with The Kiddo on an assignment for her class that drove me nuts. It seemed simple enough on the face of it: write a movie script about a boomtown (they're reading Boom Town in their class). But then I had to explain what a script looked like, and get her to write a story about it.

When she wrote it, I saw she had no clue about why a boomtown became a boomtown. I'm a writer, right? So I tried to help her by asking questions to focus on the holes in her story ... and she cried and said she had to start all over.

I felt like a heel.

After supper, I realized that my attempts to define a script had failed. I pulled out a copy of My Fair Lady (very dog-chewed because my now-in-doggie-heaven Lab had devoured it). The Kiddo and I read over it, with her taking Eliza's part and me doing my best Higgins impersonation. She laughed a lot and wants me to finish it up for her.

So then we went back to the script idea, and The Kiddo scrapped what she had and began acting out the play. I wrote down the lines she came up with -- it was pretty funny, and a little more polished than a teacher would believe came from an 8-year-old. She had to incorporate her vocabulary words in it, and that took some doing.

We got done about 9:30 (after doing a focus group presentation on the DH and a friend of the family). At that point, she wanted us to do a performance for my sister. So I called her up and put us on speaker phone and we did a radio broadcast. It was a lot of work, but The Kiddo had fun, and she learned more than she would have using the traditional approach.

I went to bed thinking that this must be how it is for editors and the agents who edit for their clients (not all do, from what I understand.) How do you tactfully say, "Um, this needs work," without crushing the dreams and aspirations of the writer? It doesn't help that we writers tend to be thin-skinned -- I have grown tougher skin over my writing career, but it still hurts when a VIR (very important reader) doesn't get what you're trying to accomplish.

My poor editor. I think she deserves a hug and a drink, and not necessarily in that order!

Toothaches, Wrecks and Movies

My poor Kiddo wound up with a toothache over the weekend (we had a LOT of soup), and it was a tooth that had a filling already in it.

The dentist worked her in this morning and found that a permanent tooth was coming in and dislodging the baby tooth and the filling -- so the simplest solution was to just go ahead and yank out the baby tooth. Ai-yi-yi, but it hurts to see your baby scared in a dentist chair. And then to have to send her back to school?

Other than that and not much writing getting done over the weekend, the only exciting thing that happened was how we (me and the Kiddo) narrowly escaped getting killed or badly injured -- literally. We were returning from shopping, coming home down the interstate in horrendous rain. An extended cab pick-up in the oncoming lanes lost it and went spinning over the median -- I thought the truck was going to cross into my lane. Thank goodness that the vehicle came to a rest right at the edge of the median.

The DH brought home two movies to watch (the reason I didn't get much writing done), New In Town and Gran Torino. I liked both very much, but was completely blown away by Gran Torino. Talk about "show, don't tell!" I haven't had a chance to look at the deleted scenes from Gran Torino, but I can't wait to see what Clint Eastwood decided wasn't necessary to tell his story. I always look at the deleted scenes, though. For me, it's a great way to learn the art of revision. (Or so I tell myself as I try to justify watching movies instead of writing.)

Editing a Southerner takes twice the effort

I love the South, don't get me wrong. But I feel for my editor when she has to take a sharp knife to my writing. She once pointed out that one of my favorite "repeat" words was "little." I will not embarrass myself by confessing how many times I found the word littering up my last novel -- suffice it to say it was more than a little bit. :-)

"Little" is one of those words that we southerners use to take the sting out of whatever we say. It is as reflexive as a "bless 'er heart" after a veiled insult. Since we pride ourselves on manners, we use the word a lot. "It's just a little trouble," we'll tell someone. "Or I got a little upset." To lengthen it out still longer, we will insert another word: "bit."

"It's not but a little bit of trouble," we'll tell someone who is asking us to move the world at the last second, without the benefit of a place to stand or so much as a crowbar to pry it into its new orbit. Later of course, we'll grumble, "I'm just a little bit upset about it."

I once watched a PBS special called, "Do You Speak American?" Fascinating stuff, for a writer. It left me curious to hear more regional idioms, like how New York's residents stand ON a line, not in it, or how in Philadelphia, if I'm remembering correctly, all red spaghetti sauce is referred to by natives as "gravy."

What idioms does your part of the world use?

26% done!

BeBe has got to be the slowest book I've ever written -- well, I take that back. There are a few that I started way back when, before I finished my first novel, that still aren't done. Not finishing a book really irks me. I have one that is not finished, mainly because I've been told it straddles genres, and I am still trying to figure out its identity crisis.

Back to BeBe. Regardless of how slow I'm writing -- about a thousand words a day, at half my usual pace, I'm still 26% done. That's the first draft. There are things wrong with this draft, but as Nora Roberts has been oft-quoted, you can't fix a blank page. I keep hoping I can fix a full page.

On the personal side, as I face a weekend of laundry and grocery shopping, the Kiddo is finishing up her first week of third grade. Third grade is hard already. We are learning how to study, and we are not having fun. I'd forgotten, after all my years in formal education, that "studying" doesn't come naturally. It has to be taught. Here I am, a mother with a degree in education, and I still find myself pulling my hair out, trying to figure out what works for the Kiddo.

The plus side is that the science textbook that we have tussled with so far has pictures of dinosaurs at the Fernbank Museum of Natural History. The Kiddo was delighted that she recognized the big dino skeletons. She's already planning on taking our vacation pix to show to her class -- that is, IF I can figure out how to get them off the digital camera.

This is just too dang funny!

My thanks to Janet Reid's blog ... not sure where it originated, and I'm hoping I can make the link work.

We're writing, we're writing, we're writing ...

Remember that scene in Dave, where the White House tour guide is walking backwards and leads the group by saying, "We're walking, we're walking, we're walking?" If you haven't watched Dave (and who hasn't?? Only one of my favorite movies!), then you can also see the Progressive Girl in action on one of those addictive tv commercials that are better than some of the sitcoms.

Well, I'm writing. Thank you, God. It's a scary thing when you know something is wrong with your efforts. For non-writers, the closest sensation is that feeling you get when you've left for a 17-day/8-European-countries tour ... and you can SWEAR you forgot to do something really, really important ... like turn the stove or the iron off or drop Fido off at the pet-sitter's.

I will not be done with my first draft by August 18 unless someone gets hold of God's remote control and presses PAUSE for me. But I did write a thousand or so words last night.

Of course, sensitive Princess-and-the-Pea writer that I am, I may be completely de-railed by a wonderful audio book I'm "reading": THE HELP by Kathryn Stockett.

Some books irritate you. They are poorly written. You weep for the trees these books caused to be sacrificed in vain. Their characters are thin. Their plots are so filled with holes that they resemble a mouse-nibbled piece of Swiss cheese. Books like that motivate me. I think to myself, "Self, if XYZ can write this tripe and actually get paid for it, heck, even get on a best-seller list, there's hope." (I try not to think that maybe my readers read my books and get similarly juiced, but hey, I'm sure it happens.)

THE HELP is NOT one of those books. THE HELP is the sort of book that is so good, I say to myself, "Self, back away from the keyboard. Back slowly, slowly away from the keyboard, and you won't get hurt."

If books that irritate me are all "tell," then THE HELP is all show. And what a wonderful, marvelous show it is. I'm only on Chapter Three, but oh, my Lord, this book is better than Starbucks Java Chip Frappuccino. I am praying, "Please, please, please, Kathryn Stockett, don't let me down. Keep all this good writing coming." The last time I felt like this was when I read GODS IN ALABAMA by Joshilyn Jackson.

My book is nothing like Kathryn Stockett's (or Jackson's, btw), even though it is Southern, even though it is women's fiction. I hope that "nothing like" counts only toward plot. But in my deeper, darker moments, I find myself wondering if I'm ever going to be that good.

Writing in the Gaps

People who know me always ask, "When do you find time to write?" The honest answer lately is, "Whenever I can."

I'm like so many writers -- heck, so many PEOPLE -- these days, with way too much stuff to cram in the scant few hours between putting my feet on the floor and laying my head on the pillow at night. There's the kiddo, who needed school supplies and back-to-school clothes. There's the dayjob, with two crisis-mode, "I need 'em yesterday" back-to-back projects. There's the poor neglected hubby, who would love for me to actually converse with him rather than simply grunt, "Writing. Can't talk now." There's the fact that a family can't survive on anything less than actual food, and budgets don't really stretch to eating out a lot, even if I liked that sort of thing. And laundry. OMG, don't get me started on laundry.

And then there's the kiddo again, with insomnia brought to us by Wizards of Waverly Place's flirtation with Zombies and Vampires. (Yes, we should have exercised our parental authority and switched off the tube, but how were we supposed to know that the kiddo who was laughing while she watched it would turn into a blithering, "Mommy, the Zombie's LEG fell off while he was DANCING! His leg was GONE!!!!")

You hear writers talk all the time about writing at their children's practices or in the car pool lane or dictating chapters into a tape recorder. I admire them, but I can't do it. I have to have a block of time and quiet to write. I have to listen to my characters, and dadgummit, they whisper.

But a writer writes. If she doesn't, well, she's not a writer.

So last night, in desperation, cranky from being stretched in so many different directions with no writing time, I found a gap for writing. After she'd interrupted me with pleas about insomnia remedies (this is Day 2 after Wizards and Vampires and Zombies, and still she can't sleep) I grabbed my laptop and went into the kiddo's bedroom.

"You gonna work in here, Mommy?" she asked as I snuggled in beside her.

I started typing away. "I will as long as you go to sleep."

"Okay." She curled up beside me and started reading over my shoulder.

"Go to sleep."

"I will."

"Now."

But by then, the only sounds were her little baby snores and my fingers, finally, blissfully, clicking away on my keyboard.

The pesky internal editor

Ms. I. Editor has made her presence well and truly known this week. Just as soon as I'd rounded my 13K mark, she wouldn't be quiet. So I did the sensible thing. I stepped away from the keyboard and listened to her.

Sometimes the old gal knows of what she nags. This time was one of them. I went back, listened to my characters, analyzed what I'd written, bug the stew out of my critique partners, my beta readers and any unsuspecting person walking down the street that I could accost and ask, "So if you were reading a book about a woman who is ..." (Survey results: canvassing Unsuspecting People Walking Down The Street nets a 100% response rate of "uh, are you crazy or what?")

I figured out what was wrong. Now the question is, can I figure out how to fix it and make up all my lost ground in my challenge with Kate the BritChickLit writer? I'll bet she's fired her Internal Editor and just sailing along.

On a more personal note, my little angel caught her first fish today -- an oversized minnow. She's already told her dad that she wants to go fishing tomorrow. She asked, since the fish she caught was not quite frying size, if we could put it in our fish aquarium. Somehow I think that would have required A LOT of explaining to our goldfish.

Isn't she lovely?

My blog, that is! My lovely and wonderful friend Bosey has removed the tentacles of HTML from around my neck and helped me update the template. Bosey calls me a technophobe, but that's not true. I'm more of a technifumbler -- sometimes I get it right, and sometimes I don't.

Writing ... is ... not ... going well. There, I said it. Another writer that I know, Michelle Styles talked about table-dusting, where two actresses in the role of maids dance around a table with feather dusters while their dialogue sets up the play. My internal editor, confound her, is now convinced that all 13K plus words of BeBe are the sum and product of table-dusting. Meh.

Still, all the more reason to write quickly and not let Ms. Internal Editor get her evil clutches into me. Why can't that woman ever go on vacation?? She could take the jaunt to Rome I want to take!

THE GOOD, THE BAD AND THE UGLY: Word count is 13,416. Still lots of writing ahead of me today.

WHAT I SHOULD BE DOING INSTEAD OF BLOGGING: Folding clothes, working on that writing challenge, visiting my mom.

Well, pride goeth ...

Okay, okay, so much for my big, fat mouth. In the past 24 hours, I've managed to write only a thousand or so words. However, in the spirit of my challenge, I've decided to post the good, bad and ugly.

Current word count: 11,195. (Do all the words your Internal Editor zapped count? Because that witch scrapped a bunch!)

WHAT I SHOULD BE DOING INSTEAD OF BLOGGING: Making good on that challenge, and feeding the kiddo and the hubby.

TO DO LIST: Figure out how to edit this blasted sidebar ... HELP! ANYBODY! I'm being strangled by HTML!

A challenge in the spirit of NaNoWriMo!

As I was researching how to replace my old non-working word meter, I came across a fellow (and better disciplined) blogger across the Pond, Chicklit Work in Progress (And wouldn't you know, I'm so technologically challenged, I can't even get the hyperlink to work. Blast.)

Kate, who writes British Chicklit (some of my absolute favorite writing, btw, though I can't write it to save my life!) recently cranked out an amazing amount of words in one sitting. She was wondering if perhaps she could finish her rough draft of her YA in two weeks if she kept up the present rate.

By sheer coincidence, I, too, had cranked out a similar number of words on Sunday (just over 3500) on my latest women's fiction project. I'd figured that I could be done with the rough draft by August 18 if I continued to write another 2500 words each day.

So what's a writer like myself to do except to challenge her? As one of my CPs just posted on my Facebook wall, "Um, insane much? :)"

The details are still being worked out -- Kate needs to finish her rough draft in two weeks, whereas I have the luxury of waiting until August 18. But I figure, hmmm, whoever gets to 50K words first wins ... bragging rights? A one-way ticket to the nuthouse? Or at least just the chance to type THE END.

We'll see. To keep me honest, I'll post word counts on this blog and on Facebook and perhaps eHarlequin.

Been MIA for awhile

Uh, from the looks of it, about a three books-long while. Yep. In the interim, I've written and sold three more books. The last one was For The Sake of The Children (Harlequin Superromance Dec. 08.)

My lovely editor, Victoria Curran, has another proposal from me ... hopefully it will be a go as well. That's one thing they don't tell you (or maybe can't convince you about) before you sell a book for the first time: that squirrelly, nervous feeling about a project's prospects? It never goes away ... or it hasn't yet.

I'm tweaking another proposal for Victoria, and I'm also working away at two totally different projects, just for fun. One is a women's fiction MS, and the other is a cozy mystery.

WHAT I SHOULD BE DOING INSTEAD OF BLOGGING: uh ... grocery shopping? GROAN. I hate grocery shopping!
NEXT THING ON THE TO-DO LIST: Figure out how to get the word count calculator off my sidebar ... it never worked that well anyway!

New time on Statesboro Signing!

Ooops ... my bad!

The Statesboro Wal-Mart will start at 11 a.m., not 10 a.m., on May 5.

Sheesh. I'll never get the hang of this!

My book's on the shelves!

I have news! I've wanted to share it, but unfortunately Blogger and I have had a disagreement about whether I should move to the New and Improved Blogger. Grrr.

Blogger won.

Double-grr.

Onward to news: My book, THE BABY WAIT, is now on the shelves! People -- complete and total strangers -- are picking up my book, turning it over, reading the blurb, flipping open to the first page, and ...

Eeek. I don't know what's next. Will they buy it? Or will they say, "Eh, not for me."

Oh, well -- it's a treat for me to see it on the shelves! My friend Cindy Miles spotted it first -- and called me to share the good news!

Later that day, I took Kate and my dh to see it -- and while I was standing there, I sold and autographed two books -- to complete and total strangers! Yay!

More news: I am doing several signings, basically because I am a nut and won't believe what experienced writers tell me -- it's a waste of time. I'm a hard-headed person and I have to learn this for myself.

On Saturday, April 28, from 10 a.m. -12 noon., I'll be at the Vidalia Wal-Mart. That's during the middle of the Vidalia Onion Festival, so come for the air show and stop by Wally-World to see me.

Later that day, (April 28) from 2 p.m. - 4 p.m., I'll be signing at the Dublin Wal-Mart.

I know, I know, two signings in one day -- I must be a loon, right?

On May 5, you can catch me at the Statesboro, Georgia Wal-Mart -- home of the GSU Eagles! I'll be there from 10 a.m. until noon.

On May 19, I'll be signing at the Barnes & Noble at the Forum in Norcross -- I believe that signing will begin around 2 p.m. I know I'll be signing with one other pubbed author of GREAT talent -- Berta Platas, whose CINDERELLA LOPEZ I just absolultely loved!

On June 23, I'll be signing with loads of talented ladies at the Savannah B&N -- I'll update you on who all will be there soon, I promise! (Especially now that Blogger and I have come to an understanding!)

Writing: How do I do it

Tess Gerritsen, a thriller writer I much admire, on her blog had a very interesting pair of entries. They were about how she wrote.

She is a pantser -- a fly-by-the-seat-of-her-pants, where she has no idea who the bad guy is when she first starts out with the book.

I'm amazed that anyone could do that. I'm a plotter, a planner, a list-maker extraordinaire. It drives me crazy to go grocery shopping without a list, so how on earth could I write a book without at least a little planning?

She does it, and does it well, so I'm not knocking it. It's not for me, though.

People ask me how I do it. How do I plan so much of the story and not get so bored out of my mind that I can go ahead and write it?

The trick is to have faith that your characters will surprise you. A minor character will leap off the page and take over -- like in WHERE LOVE GROWS, my Superromance that will be released in October. My heroine visits a farm only to be introduced to a guy who surely loves his porcine pets. He was such an unexpected, loveable character that I plan to use in him in a spin-off novel (please, Lord, let my editor like it!)

I don't want to know EVERYTHING about my characters -- just enough to have more than a conversation of smalltalk with them. Later on, like I do when making a new friend, I'll discover new and small things. I'll discover my heroine hated Spaghettios or never got to wear a pair of red ruby slippers she coveted (I'm making this up about these characters -- but it's got my creative juices flowing).

For me, it all comes down to the old saw about luck being preparation meeting up with opportunity. If I wasn't sure where the story was going, I might be impatient and ignore these subtle clues my brain is using to help me improve the story. As it is, I have learned to listen ... but I'm still not able to leave home without the map.

Sorry to be MIA

OK, OK, so I'm the world's worst blogger and I haven't blogged in ages. But I come bearing excuses: (a) the dayjob is kicking my backside; (b) I've not long got off the revised version of WHERE LOVE GROWS -- it's in production, according to my lovely and talented editor Laura Shin, who swears it's "very far from crap." (That's good, isn't it?); (c) I've been working on proposals ... and (d) the fact of the matter is, life's swamped me.

Today I caught up on tax prep (ewww, yuck. Why CAN'T I be organized and do this expense stuff monthly), took Kate to an Easter Egg hunt and gardened. This is the first year in a while that I've actually took the trouble to put a garden in. I do it by the Square Foot method ... anybody ever heard of that?

I also (yay!) got some writing time in, though only six pages, not my usual 10. Still, I only have about four pages left to write of this partial, and I think I can finish it up tomorrow.

Operative word there, think. I have church, a visit to my mom, and Kate's singing in the special Passover service at church tomorrow night. But I'm determined! And sleep is HIGHLY overrated!

Oops ...

Okay, upon looking at my Blogroll, I find I don't have my fellow Super author Amy Knupp on there ... but you can find her at www.amyknupp.com (and no, I can't make that a live link -- remember, browser issues?).

While I'm at it, I'll tag Stephanie Bose, CP extraordinaire, and Tammy ... why not share the love and find out weird things about my buds?

Six to Ten Weird things about myself

Teresa has tagged me, so I guess I should honor her tag and figure out six to ten weird things about me.

I'm a fairly boring person, so I don't know that I can come up with three things, but I'll try.

Hmmm ...

Weird Fact One: I'm only 4'10" tall. That means I go through life at arm-pit level to everyone else. So PLEASE, for the vertically challenged around you, wear your anti-perspirant.

Weird Fact Two: I wear a size three and a half ladies shoe ... which means that I have a heckuva time finding shoes to wear.

Weird Fact Three: Something about my elbow, shoulder or wrist joints is super-flexible, and I can rotate my arms in a way that makes my dh gag.

Weird Fact Four: I have not very much feeling in my left big toe. I kid you not, I can't even test bath water with it.

Weird Fact Five: I'm dyscalculic. I'll let you guys look that word up. Consider it your vocabulary word of the day.

Weird Fact Six: Speaking of dictionaries, when I was little, on rainy days when I had exhausted all the books in the house, I actually DID read the dictionary. (Yes, I know I'm weird. Isn't that the point of this exercise?)

OK, that's about it. I can't think of another weird thing that wouldn't make you guys yawn with boredom. I'm back to Art Fact Sheets that are due on Feb. 22 (Happy Birthday, George Washington!) and proposals that my editor is asking for as she reads over WHERE LOVE GROWS (which is, by the way, the official title of my book that will come out in in October.)

Oh, hmmmh, I suppose I should tag some other folks. I'm on a 9.2 version of Mac OS, which means my browser is giving me fits (yes, I know, I know, I should upgrade ... but that comes after the dayjob, the writing job, the kid, the hubby and the laundry -- and notice dusting isn't mentioned ANYWHERE in that list.) So use my links to my favorite blogs to get there from here.

I tag Cindy Miles and Tanya Michaels and Amy Knupp. All three of them are probably swamped, but they'll get to it eventually.

GOT MY COVER!!

Who knew a paragraph here and there would be so impossible?

Not me... but I do now, what with a book that is finally in the hands of my editor-- yay -- and then on the other hand, sheer terror!

But I did want to share my early Valentine's Day present with whomever might still be tuning in ...

Igot my cover! Isn't it a beaut? My hero looks just like Joe, and Sara looksa whole bunch like some actress that I can't place ... any guesses or isit all just in my head?

As an added plus, I'm actually on Amazon.com ... eek!

Of course, I would highly recommend you buy any online copies from, say, eHarlequin.

I am also considering doing a contest giveaway ... would anybody be open to, say, a lovely batch of Supers?

Past the 20K mark!

I'm sure I'm boring the fire out of what few people stick their head in here ... but nightly reporting my progress on my blog keeps me honest ...

I am proud to report my CWC (computer word count) stands at 20,023! Yay! I have 93 pp, as well, which means I'm almost done with the horrid first hundred. Does anybody else have trouble with the first hundred pp?

My calculations (again, forgive me, I'm not tangling with that blasted progress bar) tell me I'm 28% done ...

Oh, and good news from three of my CPs: One has several agents VERY interested in her ... yay! She actually has an offer on the table and other agents are breaking their neck to finish up her stuff. Another has two requests on her YA project -- and it's good stuff, so yay for her! And my third CPs good news is non-writing, but let's face it, until we're all NYT best-selling authors, dayjob good news is welcome any ol' time ... she has a new job, her first in management. I know she'll do well, and that this will give her a good step up in the right direction.

So yay! Atta-girls all around!

A quarter of the way!

OK! I now have 17, 487 little words, and according to my calculations, that means I'm 24.9% of the way! Yay!

If I can keep up this pace, I will have the rough draft done in 23 more days ... more like 25 more days, because I intend to take off Christmas Eve and Christmas Day.

This makes, however, the third day straight where I have fallen asleep during my goodnight snuggle with Kate ... I wake up to find it's really late, but I MUST write. So I wind up writing until one or two in the morning and then ... that next night, I repeat the cycle.

The good thing is that after tomorrow, I should have off until the first part of January, which means I can get some writing done during the day, catch up on sleep and make some headway. My wonderful dh has said he will babysit so that I can get ahead on my writing. Maybe he's tired of sleeping by the glow of the laptop?!

Another 12 pages

My dh says be reasonable ... but reasonable to a writer with a deadline is to kick it in high gear and write while the ink is flowing. So tonight, after a Christmas dance program for Kate, supper out at Mickey D's, and baking cookies for Kate's teacher, parapro, music rotation teacher, P.E. coaches, computer rotation teacher, speech pathologist, a teacher who is next door to Kate's class AND a teacher who Kate knows (all this was Kate's idea, mind you, and I felt like a bah-humbug for wanting to say, "uhm, let's ..." so I didn't.), I got kicked into high gear and wrote an even dozen.

I'm not fooling with the progress bar, but according to my spotty math, I'm 21% done now ... a chapter a day keeps the editor saying, "Yay!"

A Little Progress On The Progress Bar

Well, tinkered with the progress bar, and got it to register word count, which says I'm 17% of the way done ... onward, onward!

A chuggin' along

OK, another nine pages done tonight ... and it's only half past midnight. If I don't get sucked into Miss Snark's Crap-o-meter, (pay no attention to the woman in the stillettos, pay NO attention to the woman in the stillettos!) I will actually get to bed at a semi-decent time.

I am still at a loss as to how to fix my little progress bar. I know how to change the numbers, but I'll be John Brown if I can figure out why the progress bar doesn't move forward like it should. Very demoralizing, I tell you. Maybe it's my browser?

Today was quite busy ... my little one had to do an encore performance of a special interpretive dance at church this morning, and she had to do it solo, without her friend. She was all tears last night, until I said, "I know you can do it, and you're going to do so well that afterwards we're going to go anywhere you'd like to for lunch."

I was expecting McDonald's or Wendy's or Burger King.

She said ... "Red Lobster."

Guess that last sale celebration I had stuck in her mind!

So toss in church (she NAILED that dance, btw! Proud mommy moment there!), the celebratory lunch afterwards, a visit to my mom's and my grandmother's and then back here for supper, bath, storytime and bed (and sleep came VERY hard for Kate tonight!) ... and I was doing good to get to my laptop by 10 p.m.

Oh, and Jenna ... they ARE trying to bankrupt us! Grandparents! Why won't they get that excited about investing in the COLLEGE fund?! I know, I know ... not any fun at all!

Pshew! Still got it!

For various reasons that would bore most people to tears, I've suffered that dreaded writer's disorder (no, not Writer's Block ... it doesn't exist) Lifeus Interruptus. I'm sure there's a nice Latin word for Life, but for the life of me (no pun intended), I can't think of it.

But yes, life has interrupted and I've been away from my laptop for my nightly sessions. Coming back intimidated me ... would I still be able to churn out a chapter a night?

Well, tonight, I got back on the horse. Yes, I started late (10:45, after a day of cleaning, gift-wrapping and cell phone programming ... DON'T ask!), but at 1:30 a.m., I had 11 pp like I wanted 'em for now.

How I'll make it to Sunday School in the morning (er, today), I haven't a clue ... but if anybody has any toothpicks, I would appreciate it. Maybe I'll be so razzed to have the first 50 pp written (the first 38 revised per my editor's request) and written that I'll not require any toothpicks?!

Santa and the Tooth Fairy

You know, I’m cruisin’ for a bruisin’.

For the past few years, I’ve had it pretty well made when it came to Santa lore. Kate was an only child with no just-a-few-years-older cousins to muck things up … well, it made me a bit complacent. I started doing things my way.
(My dh, of course, would opine that I’ve ALWAYS done things my way, and that it’s the normal course of events.)

That “my way” part was a few clever little stitches in the tapestry of Santa’s life. Kate has never questioned that Santa only brings ONE present to each little girl and boy; after all, how else would he fit everything in his sleigh? She knows that mommies and daddies provide the rest of the kit and caboodle under the tree on Christmas morning.

She knows because that’s what I told her. It seemed like a stroke of genius at the time … I was, truth be told, sick of the Big Red Guy getting all the credit for the neat toys and so forth Christmas brings. Plus, I figured that the prospect of her losing one present from Santa would make it easier for her to come clean when she dispenses with the whole notion that Santa is … uhm, well, you know.

Now, however, she is in school. And she just might compare notes with some other little boy or girl … like she did about the Tooth Fairy.

Kate is sporting her first loose tooth. She worried about when her teeth would start falling out more than I expected … she worried because at least two other classmates already had visits from the Tooth Fairy. Naturally, she was ecstatic about having a wiggly tooth.

When I inspected that loose tooth of hers for the first time, I said, “Oooh, Kate, you’ll get a visit from the Tooth Fairy! Wow! She’ll leave you a bright shiny quarter under your pillow.”

Kate’s face got all scrunched up. She pondered that statement of mine for the longest time. Just as I started worrying that the Tooth Fairy’s visit might incite in Kate an unwelcome case of insomnia, my daughter allowed as to what was troubling her.

“Mason said that the Tooth Fairy leaves you a dollar.”

My heart did a double-skip. I did some mental digging into my brain’s databases … how many baby teeth were there? Twenty? Twenty-two? Whatever the number, that was a heckuvalotta greenbacks. No, no, a quarter would have to do.

“Uh, baby,” I said brightly, “that’s just for the FIRST tooth. You know, your FIRST tooth is a special tooth. But after that, it’s just a quarter. How else would the tooth fairy ever be able to afford to pay for all those kids’ teeth?”

I have similar visions of imminent catastrophe: some little kid, repeating the family tale he’s been told, will tell Kate that Santa brings him all manner of presents.

And that is as worrying as having to figure out just how I’ll pry that tooth out of Kate’s head when the time comes.

Printouts and Christmas Trees

Don't ask.

Yup, that's what I'd say if you asked me how my weekend was. But in order for you to fully appreciate the weekend, I guess I would have to cough up a few details.

Say, how I squeezed in the reading of a printout (double-checking for spelling and typos on THE BABY WAIT which is due back in Toronto by Dec. 15) in with putting up my Christmas tree, participating in a parade for my dayjob boss, hustling my little one to practice for the Christmas Cantata and going to her teacher's Christmas Concert.

I will say this -- during each and every event on my busy weekend calendar, I found myself saying, "Gee, I'm glad I took time for this!"

The tree was the worst chore. I'm too chintzy to buy a pre-lit tree, and I HATE putting on the lights. I usually put up my tree on the first Saturday in December. Kate would NOT let me put it off beyond Sunday. Which, I guess, was a smart move on her part. Any closer to Christmas, I would have stuck a bow on a poinsetta and said, "Ho, ho, ho ..."

No, I wouldn't have. I don't think.

Kate is big enough now to put ornaments on the tree, which is a bad thing and a good thing. The good part is that she basically did it. The bad thing is she was bored out of her skull until I could get her to that point.

Which brings me to another good/bad point: having so many ornaments. The bad part, of course, is the storing and the putting them on the tree. But the good part is that I have so many that you can't see any green on the tree when we're done (and we're talking MAMMOTH eight-footer here), so it didn't matter where Kate installed the ornaments -- it wound up looking as good as I could do it. The only thing I really did was help move the breakable ones to the top, in vain hopes that our two demon cats wouldn't trash 'em.

THe best part: it's DONE. And I got the printout read, too! Yay!