Busy, busy...

I am out of the loop. Figuratively and literally. I haven't even read my blog roll or checked my yahoo loops since...ohhhh... August? Mostly that's because I'm doing another show and that's what's keeping my creative spirit entertained. But it's also family and chores and work, and a myriad of other things that a person just can't say no to. And as I attend to these things, I know I'm doing the right thing in so many ways, but in another, it's always in the back of my head that THIS - the writing - is what's important to ME. It might not be important to my kids, or my husband, or my boss, or any of my friends, but it's important to ME. And I'm not doing it.

The theater helps with the need for creativity. It's like a bandage. A couple months of intense work, and BAM! The show goes up, a few quick performances and you get the rush of pride, the applause. The gratification is much more immediate than writing a book. But it does take me away from the writing. And that makes it almost an enemy to the writing or something. Doesn't it? Am I sabotaging myself by pursuing so many interests? But what if I quit being on stage, and never publish a book? Will I have been true to myself then? I'm making myself crazy.

A good friend of mine was telling me about a study that she'd heard about. Something about working women being stretched to the brink of their capabilities, and being more dissatisfied with their lives than ever. It got us thinking about how we went to college to become more fulfilled human beings. We were raised to think a college education was going to be our ticket to a better life. But better than what? How were we defining better? More money and less time for the things in life that truly make us happy? Is better supposed to be having a house that reminds us of an HGTV show? Or cooking meals like those seen on the cooking channel? Can I be a college educated woman and get away with serving my family SOS for dinner?!?! What about raising the kids? If I don't get home from work until 5:35, and soccer started at 5:00, doesn't that mean my kids aren't getting the advantages of me being a working mom and having the money to actually PAY for their soccer? Why do we do these things to ourselves?

Revision Process

Still revising Heart on Fire. I can't even tell you how frustrated I am with tearing apart my hard work and piecing it back together this time around. I'm beginning to understand why some just charge through their first draft like a bull in a china shop - must. get. to. end. - and not even worry about details the first time around. It certainly seems like that might be the way to go, however there's one tiny problem - my pea brain doesn't seem to work that way. My process is clunky. I have to read/re-read as I go, layering in things that occurred to me while I was sleeping or driving or grocery shopping - I have to get those things OUT while they're fresh, before I forget. I try not to waste too much time polishing sentences at the layering stage, but inevitably, I do alot of pre-editing. This wasn't so much of a problem with my first four novels - I suspect this is what's meant by "honing your skills" - you realize what parts of your process are clunky and need refining. And you also realize what you will probably always suck at. Can I accept that I suck at writing in small chunks? That I need a block of 3-4 hours to feel satisified with whatever progress I've made for a day? Now that I'm back to work, what if I never find a 3-4 hour block of time again? No, no, and no! I have to find the time, if not every day, then at least a few times a week. My kids have athletic practices almost every night during the school year, and while I want to be there for them, I get some of the best revision ideas during those times, ideas I've tried scribbling down on a notepad, but when I come back to them - they make little sense to me and the moment to integrate them into the story has evaporated. There's an hour and a half a day I could be writing... if only I had one of those mini-laptops that I could stick in my purse.

Of course the fact that our home office is still under construction doesn't help. So I'm writing on the living room couch with the kids watching TV, the birds squawking, the laundry piling up all around me, and ugh. No offense to hubby, he's doing all he can, but it's just not a very productive atmosphere. In the spirit of the room is almost done, we now have four walls and a ceiling and all new windows and electrical in there...







We also have my new desk sitting here in the living room. Okay, so it's technically ours, we both really love it, but I saw it first! Can you see it's kidney-shaped? It's going to look really pretty with what else I want to do in there. (Notice Jupiter on the floor giving it his seal of approval. His comfort is very important to me, because if he isn't comfy, he bites my feet when I'm writing, so I'm thrilled he likes it.)




And last but not least, this is the super cute mini chandelier we're ordering from a little boutique in Portland.



Fussy? Sure. But since the point of redoing the office was to reverse the nasty feng shui in there, we decided to go all in. The office is where we handle our bills - and where I hope to actually make some money with my writing. Our office also happens to be in the wealth/prosperity gua of our house. If there's one area of the house that should make you feel pampered, this is it, so that's what we're trying to do. It's a small bedroom, so everything has to be on a small scale, but when it's done, I want everything in there to reflect success and to make me feel like I've "made" it.


So hubby is off to Home Depot today for some mudding and taping supplies, and I'm back to deconstructing HOF. I hope I can get another chapter rearranged today. I hope.

Idea Collision = Possible High Concept Plot

It's always exciting to start thinking about a new project. And this time is no exception, but there's something different bubbling underneath it all this time. Need and fear and other ugly dark things I'm not sure how to write on paper. I've known since Hubby was deployed in Afghanistan that at some time or another I was going to have to write from that experience - maybe numerous times, to process it and make it cathartic or whatever it is we do with the shit that pollutes our psyches. Unlike the ideal of the Army wife, I wasn't a social butterfly while my husband was gone, attending FRG meetings to make crafts and stuff stockings and gift baskets to send overseas at holidays and special occasion times. I was a fricking nervous wreck. And my kids were falling apart. And I very much felt it was MY fault because I sucked as a wife and mother and I couldn't reassure them. I'm sure if my kids had felt better I could have felt better, but they couldn't take care of me any better than I could take care of them. And ugh - it was a vicious cycle. I thought my husband deserved a better Army wife. Someone who WOULD attend FRG meetings and laugh and cry with the other wives, someone who could festively guide his kids through a dark forest of fear and anger and lead them out the other side unafraid and better because of it. But I couldn't. No matter how much I wanted to be that stalwart woman, I COULDN'T. I hated every minute of his deployment. I hated the Army. And I hated myself for hating it. And my hate was larger than life. It consumed me from the inside, and I swear it was eating my kids alive too. I was desperate to stop it, but it had become like a separate entity or something. I couldn't understand why I felt so negatively when all I really wanted was for us to try to find some peace?

It's so hard to be at peace when a loved one is at war.

Doesn't sound very inspirational, does it? Did I mention this is going to be a dark book?

I've had a jumble of story ideas come to me. A few characters have even taken shape in the back of my head, but I didn't know what their journey was besides their soldier being gone. I couldn't write it because I needed a story that was more than a family waiting paralyzed for the phone to ring and biting their fingernails watching the headlines on Fox news. It needs to be interesting or no one is going to read it, no matter how "from the heart" the writing is. And while I'm drawing heavily on personal experience here, I don't want it to be remotely autobiographical.

So obviously, my main character is a teenager whose father is off to war. And it makes sense that her mother is absorbed in negativity because that is what my research tells me. But what else? There has to be something else. Like what if the teenager is psychic, and she is feeling her mother's negativity on a REALLY personal plane - like it's climbing inside her and eating her alive and she has to get control of it and exorcise it to save her family? This is a book by me, after all. And I like psychic thingys.

I don't know if the paranormal trend in YA is going to last. I don't even know if this is The Book, I'm going to write, but I think it has a high concepty feel. Sounds like a movie I'd like to see, so I'm going with it for now. We'll see if anything actually takes shape from here...

Got My Humor Loop, I Must Be OK!

I've been interested in palmistry for many years. As a teenager, I bought a book about it, and developed what I considered a very healthy love and skepticism for the art. I mean, palm reading is a very involved art, and it's entertaining as all get out, but how could all that information about your past, present, and future REALLY be written in the palm of your hand? You have to be a real believer in destiny to buy it. A few years back, when my mom and I passed a psychic's tent at the county fair advertising palm readings for $5, we decided to fork it over and see what the lady had to say. For entertainment value only of course. (I know, we weren't convincing ourselves either.) Well that woman blew our minds with insight into our private lives - nothing generic, nothing she could have guessed by just looking at us. We've often referenced that day with a shake of the head, and a "how could she have known?" I was convinced as of that day that there was something to palm reading that I missed as a teenager reading that book!

Nine years later, I find it almost ironic that my day job involves fingerprint analysis - all day long, I'm looking at the patterns of lines and markings on people's hands. This is strictly for identification purposes. We freqently get palm prints submitted from local law enforcement, and one day I found myself looking at a set out of curiosity (even though we don't analyze them in our office per se, we leave that to the lab). I was wondering what feature or contour might have predisposed this particular person to commit such a crime. Then I started thinking that all these whorls and arches and loops would have some sort of significance to a palm reader, right? Now there's no place for pseudo-science where I work, but it doesn't mean I can't be interested in it in my own time! So I bought some books on palm reading, and it's SO interesting. And not at all as cracked or hard to understand as I thought it would be.

For instance, I have a loop on the palm below my pinky and ring finger. This loop denotes an active sense of humor and an optimistic attitude. My sister, who is in nursing school, has a set of lines below her pinky called medical stigmata which indicate a propensity for healing. One of my dear friends who is a tarot reader and spiritual channel has numerous markings on her hands that indicate her gifts as an intuitive. My husband has militia lines running between his thumb and forefinger, and he's been in the military for 15 years! Still not convinced? Well, that's fine. As with anything, you can't prove a thing to a total skeptic, but I am blown away by how much fun I'm having looking at people's hands lately. And who knows? This might make interesting fodder for a future book.

Writing Progress

Writing is so hard.

I used to think it was funny the advice "Quit, if you can" was funny. But that was before I had really become addicted to it. Writing was always something fun for me as a kid - a break from reading books and watching movies. I wrote a lot of horror fan fiction. Then as a teen, I turned to sloppy melodramatic poetry for a release (like so many other people I know - hee!). Then while I was in college, I wrote nothing but essays and literary criticism for five years. That sucked so bad, I didn't really see myself finding writing OR reading fun ever again. But pretty soon, when I was home with my kids, I was back to both as it was the only me-time I could steal between diapers and naps. I fell in love again. I had missed stories, and writing fiction was like putting on an pair of well-worn hydraulic jeans. Why would I ever want to give that up?

Well, I get it now. Holy smokes, if I could quit writing, I definitely would, because I would truly like to be able to sit on the couch without these characters talking inside my head, badgering me to find my thumbdrive, fire up Word and take some flippin notes.

I'm working full time, the kids are busy, hubby is still renovating my office, and progress is slower than a snail making his way across the interstate, but I'm working on it. I'd really like to finish this first draft of Heart on Fire soon. In fact, I'd like to set some goals, but I'm not even sure what realistic means anymore. What would be realistic? To rewrite the same sentence over and over again three times a week? Attainable maybe, but not so encouraging. However, summer is here, and I'm having surgery next week, so I'll be out of work for a little while to recover. I'm hoping I'll feel like writing after the first day or two.

Tonight, I'm doing a little read-through with the feedback I received from another contest I entered it in. It wasn't nearly as well received as the first contest, as it was judged strictly as a romance by both judges, and I did NOT win a prize. One of the two judges told me I should get a dictionary, and consistently called my main character Edward (his name is Edwin), so I wasn't too worried about her feedback at all, but But I do believe I recieved some valuable feedback for moving forward and steering the characters to where I want them to go from the judge who was a bit nicer. Here's where I'm at with the current draft:

69000 / 90000 words. 77% done!

I estimated my final word count to be 90,000 words, which is on the long side for a YA. But some YA's, particularly the ones I'd compare this to, are a bit longer. I still think I might wrap it up in under that though, which would be good for the market.

Back to Work

Neglecting the blog inevitably means I'm neglecting the writing. And that just blows, to be honest. I've kind of given up even trying to find the time to write, and you know what? It's not working for me. At all. I'm not finding more hours in my day for other things I need to be doing. I'm not less stressed out. I'm not even enjoying myself more. So nose back to the grindstone. I'm gonna try to get back into my rewrites, sooner rather than later.

One of Those Mondays

I'm having another one of those I-hate-writing-and-everything-remotely-associated-with-it days.


I just realized today that my blog template SUCKS and does not look right on some computer screens. Grrr. Sorry if anyone has been frustrated by the appearance of the sidebars. I've tried modifying it a few times, and thought I'd worked that out, but apparently the problem lives on like Elvis.


I'm revising Heart on Fire right now, and revisions are always such a frustrating, time consuming, suck the life right out of me process anyway. But on top of that, I'm really missing the old pre-fulltime-job days when I actually had time to sit down, read a scene through, note the problems and rework them in one long sitting. But frankly, even if I had that kind of time to write on weekends, I'm never alone anymore, and interruptions and distractions do make the process even more tedious. It's so hard to get the full impact of a scene when working it in paragraph-long chunks.


And right now, I'm fighting with an"I'm going to delete this blog and forget it ever happened" moment. What is the point of blogging about writing, if one isn't doing any writing?


Of course I realize that these moments usually come on the heels of a big success, or just before a huge productive patch. I guess I'm restless because I don't have anything on submission right now. I usually like to have something "out there" and I'm very frustrated that I don't have anything ready besides Intended (which I decided to give a break, at least until the vampire fad starts to die down a bit). So maybe this is just a sign I should just sharpen that laser focus again and set some reasonable goals for the week. I'm rewriting chapter three right now. Guess I'd be happy if I could get through chapter 4 before the weekend.


But first to get a new blogger template.

Been wanting to share this all week...

Heart on Fire WON the Linda Howard Award of Excellence in the YA category!!

I am really thrilled that this story seems to be hitting it's mark, and while I still have some serious rewriting to do before it's ready to go on submission, I am so glad to have a well respected contest to put on my query letter. Couldn't ask for more!

A Little Yahell Cartharsis I Wanted to Share

This is less of a rant and more of a catharsis.

Beware. My cartharses can take a few minutes to really come around and start to gel. But I will get there sooner or later. Girl scout promise.

So here's the deal. I'm an (expiring) member of a certain online writer's group. Expiring because my dues are past due and I haven't logged into paypal to take care of that yet, so maybe I'm not planning to. I mean, part of me wanted to renew, but part of me has been asking for a really long time "what exactly am I getting from this besides a full inbox?" The answer has been honestly "not much" for a while. This is a loop I used to find pretty stimulating - there was a lot of discussion of the industry. Interesting tidbits, and workshops that you could take or leave. And a really nice sense of comraderie and encouragement where published authors took the time to advocate for newbs. But the group has changed somewhat, and I'm not saying it's bad... it's really not bad at all. It's just not... what I need. And I don't know how to get back that loving feeling.

It's sad that at this moment, I feel I need a disclaimer, but I do. So here it is. I'm a seasoned volunteer. President of this. Coordinator of that. I've been volunteering ten-twenty hours a week for my entire adult life. I have lived by the mantra, don't complain about something if you don't have an idea for a solution. I understand in ways I can't express how hugely frustrating it is for a volunteer leader to try and compost a crappy experience for members who aren't willing to take a turn stirring the pile a little. So since I didn't have a solution in mind, I never said a word. I went into deep lurk mode, scoured my daily digest for crumbs I could use, and went away disappointed and dissatisfied when there was nothing. I had fallen out of love and the group was no longer meeting my needs and I was just going to walk away. A clean break up. I wasn't going to hurt over it, really.

Then a few days ago, someone made a really interesting post on the loop. She said she was unhappy and was thinking of leaving, but she wanted to give the group some feedback first. She thought if she was feeling this way, there had to be others who weren't saying anything. And deep down inside me, I thought of those ten million conference attendee survey forms I've read - how satisfied were you with your experience at this conference? 1-10. And I thought... yes! You are so right! I personally learn very little from those who just circle the number. I learn the most from those who write a short response. I emailed her off loop (because that's what you're supposed to do on the loop is take personal emails off loop and that was one of the things turning us both off - so many personal responses ON loop) and I just said somehting like thanks for saying that -I feel the same way, and I wasn't going to say anything because I didn't have any ideas, but you are right, they should know it ain't working for some of us. And she emailed me back politely saying thank you, and that was that.

Then something amazing happened back on the loop. People started replying to her original message on loop. Some people agreed with her, and several more kinda flamed her for being insensitive to the volunteers who run the group or for not stepping up and becoming a leader in the group if she was so unhappy. Some people said they liked everything fine the way it was. Some people said "we have rules?" Things got uncomfortable and snitty for a day or so. People voiced discomfort with disagreement. People voiced discomfort with being criticized for speaking their minds. Others applauded leaders for their hard work. Leaders explained how they don't read minds even though ESP is way popular in fiction right now. I held my breath as the president gracefully stepped in, silenced everyone, and started composting.

And did I mention it was really amazing?

Pretty soon, some misunderstandings were laid to rest. And the program of guests was announced. And the contest was spoken of. Volunteers were requested. And a new topic of conversation for people to bond and network over was introduced. And networking did happen. And this one expiring member I know started looking for her credit card.

Criticism is so hard to listen to - and even harder to process. No one likes being told that what they're doing isn't enough. Especially when they're doing all they can. And for that reason, it's hard for some of us to come out of lurk mode. I treat others the way I want to be treated, right? I'm not going to criticize!!! How would I like to be criticized?!? I wouldn't!!! But keeping quiet is a lose/lose situation. The group loses because they never get to hear how they can improve! And YOU lose because you never get the chance to get the benefit of that improvement! It IS important to be polite and thoughtful. But it is just as important to speak your mind if you don't have the solution on hand. Because you never know - the person next to you might have the perfect solution and not know it's a problem for you. When we were kids, we called this brainstorming.

I'm going to think about this next time I'm in a similar situation. Because one brave chick had the guts to type her mind on a loop before she expired, a whole bunch of other chicks put their heads together and made something worth hanging around Yahell for every chick!

Done correctly, criticism is inspiring!! And the initial discomfort is so worth the end results.

I Heart Hippie Day

Anyone that knows me knows I'm a little hippie deep down inside. So I think Earth Day is pretty neat because it gets people everywhere to channel their inner hippie.

I think about the earth A LOT. Annoyingly so, probably. I'm a rabid recycler - to the point of rescuing returnables from the trash; carrying my soup can home after work because there isn't a recycling program there; and even bringing my own travel mug to the cafeteria at work. I think the earth and her resources are too precious to endanger them knowingly. It's a spiritual thing for me.

I'm also kind of compulsive about researching my food. This gets me a lot of raised eyebrows, and I'm sure many of my friends feel judged because I tend to like to share what I learn. But the truth is, I am just constantly amazed at how much poison is allowed to go into the things people think are healthy, and how the food industry targets children. It's a total injustice, and another thing about me is that I'm all about justice. Where are the ethics?!? *shakes fist at the sky*

An example that comes to mind right now is Gatorade. I have a couple of athletic kids who looooove Gatorade. They were drinking G2 because it was kind of the "in" thing to drink with their friends, I guess. I was ignorant. I knew it was full of sugar, but it had electrolytes in it, right? And they are exercising and losing a lot of electrolytes, right? Yeah. I didn't know. And as a result, they didn't know. We were uninformed, and I was foolishly trusting an advertisement. (And I'm mad at myself because I know better, right? Don't we know better than to trust advertisements?) Well, I recently did some research on Splenda for my own purposes, I was using it in my coffee, and I knew intuitively it was bad for me, and I wanted to know more. And while I was learning that sucralose could be causing the kidney problems I've been having, I also learned that G2 is artificially sweetened with sucralose!! I was outraged. Kids aren't supposed to have aspartame or splenda, especially while they're growing. Everyone knows that! It causes all sorts of health issues, and there have been no longterm studies - how dare they market G2 to young people? When I told my son what was in his G2, he put the bottle down like it was going to blow up with the slightest impact, and he just looked at me with such a disbelief that he'd been drinking it. He said he wasn't going to drink that stuff anymore. And I have noticed that he's been reaching for water so much more often. I'm not saying that he hasn't had a regular gatorade a few times, or that even that is good for him, because it's not. But I like that my kiddo is making an informed choice. I like knowing that when he decides to have a sports drink, he does so knowing what kind of health problems it causes.

Informed choice is the crux of the new hippie movement we have going here. A lot of folks think the Green thing is nothing more than a fad - I read recently that because of the recession, people were going to forget all about being green and go back to cheaper is better. But I just laughed at that. People, truly going green is often way cheaper than you think. And knowledge is priceless.

Don't believe me? Check this out:
1 gatorade costs roughly a dollar (maybe more) at the grocery story
if I have two kids and they each drink 1 gatorade each time they have an athletic practice or event, and they each have three per week, that's 6 gatorades a week. Or $6 a week. (We have a Brita filter and reusable water bottles, so the cost there is negligible.)

If I previously wanted to buy cage free certified humane eggs at $3 a dozen but didn't think I could afford them because they are twice what regular eggs cost at $1.50 a dozen... guess what? I just found the money to buy the eggs. AND I improved the health of my family. AND I have money left over to save for a new Brita filter. That is sweet.

Hippies Rule. Haters Drool.