The End of NaNo

Well, I did it.

I wrote more than 50,000 words of a new novel that I hadn't even done any planning for prior to November 1, and I have the icon to prove it.


I also have a lovely winner's certificate that I'm putting on my wall, and I'm patting myself on the back. I've actually written 73,854 words so far, with plans for 15K more by Thursday, and then, if I succeed, I'll have completed a full single title novel in a record (for me) 30 days.

So what? What good did it do me, besides meeting a personal goal and proving that I can write fast?

Well, for one, it put me back in touch with my roots, in a way. Before June 2006, I wrote at night. When I was working hard, I'd write every minute I could, including commercials during football games and while dinner was cooking and while the kids were getting ready for bed.

Since June, when I started writing "full time," I've had a more set routine (and even more so since August). I write when the kids are in school, and in the afternoons I do Mommy stuff, and in the evenings I read or watch TV. It's a nice routine, but it kind of softened me. If I didn't have a stellar day, or if I had a day where I didn't write at all, I didn't vary my routine. It was good for me to exercise that "write anywhere, anytime" intensity.

It will also teach me something about revisions. I've never written a book where I ignored the crap--and believe me, while I don't think most of the book is crap, there are some big seeping sections of it that will need a lot of work. I have a revision section of my WIP chart and it is growing, and growing. I'm interested to see how much easier or harder it will be to do all the changes together, instead of editing as I go.

NaNo also reminded me about love. Not love between my characters, but my love for writing. A year ago, I was struggling to work on a book I didn't love, a book I'd outgrown. I'm satisfied with that novel, which will be released in January and complete my Brook Hollow trilogy, but I'm so much happier writing something I love. I know I won't always have this, so I'm valuing it now.

Most of all, I've had fun. It's been great checking up on my friends, cheering them on, being cheered and cursed by them, and feeling, even over the cold Internet, the joy and excitement of this joint adventure. I can't wait to see how many of the NaNo books sell, and will be looking out for them to read.

There are four days left, so if any NaNoers are reading this who haven't made the 50K yet, keep on going, don't give up, and above all, reward yourself for whatever milestone you reach, even if you can't claim a pretty blue icon.

Stranger Than Fiction

I just got home from seeing the movie Stranger Than Fiction, and I have to say, I enjoyed it a lot more than I expected to.

Warning: Mild Spoilers

First, I hate strongly dislike Will Ferrell. His brand of humor just doesn't touch me, and while I wouldn't call him a bad actor, I try to avoid movies in which he plays a large part. But as an author, I was intrigued by the premise of this movie, and he was clearly performing in an understated role, so I decided to give it a try.

He did a great job. Much like Jim Carrey in The Truman Show, he conveyed humor and pathos with subtlety and charm. Maggie Gyllenhall (I think I spelled that correctly) was impressive, as well. Emma Thompson blew them all away, but then, she always does.

Anyway. I generally am not interested in exploring the human condition in my fiction, whether reading it or writing it. I mean, I'm living the human condition. I don't need someone's dark, fatalistic take on life and death, especially because it usually means the story is a tragedy. There's value in a story that makes you cry and appreciate every minute you live--but not for me.

That's why I liked this movie so much. It took that exploration, that inevitability of death, and turned it on its head. The pacing, while slow, never felt draggy, and I don't know whether to attribute that to the writer, Zach Helm, or the director and editor, or both. I cried at the end, yet when it was over, I didn't feel purged or sad or moody or depressed or even contemplative--I felt satisfied and content.

I think this movie will get an A from me, a rare rating for a film that's not starring Johnny Depp and Orlando Bloom this year. :)

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
While I'm talking about acting, I wanted to express my appreciation for two possibly underrated actors: Steve Guttenberg (underrated because of Police Academy) and Aaron Ashmore (underrated only because he is young and hasn't done much yet).

Both actors were in Veronica Mars. Steve Guttenberg amazed me every time he was on screen. I was watching this incredibly familiar face, this icon from my childhood (and star of one of my favorite growing-up movies, Three Men and a Baby). Yet his character had a hardness, a smarminess, I never would have expected him to be able to pull off. He became his character in an incredibly convincing manner and possibly deserved an Emmy.

Aaron Ashmore was in season one of VM and in one episode of season two. He was fine, on par with the generally high quality of that show. But it wasn't until I compared Troy (from VM) with Jimmy Olsen, his current character on Smallville, that I was impressed. His Jimmy Olsen is naive and sweet and YOUNG in ways his Troy couldn't come close to being. He gave Troy confidence bordering on cockiness but a smooth charm that made him seem worthy of Veronica, until he was revealed to be a cad. The distinction in characters is small and is internally driven, which I see as a mark of a great actor. I'll be interested to see how he develops over time.

Thankful

The one societal holiday tradition I adhere very strongly to is acknowledging at Thanksgiving all the things I'm grateful for.

This year I find that very difficult, because I am so blessed as to have very little I'm NOT thankful for. All the most important things--family, health, friends, basic needs--are taken care of, and then some.

So to save you all from boredom, I'm kinda turning this post on its head:

1. I'm thankful for our rear neighbor for stealing wood from our wood pile, because it highlights just how damned good my life is, for this to be the worst thing I'm dealing with.

2. I'm thankful for the "check engine" light on my car going on, because it forced me to schedule routine maintenance I was putting off to avoid spending the money.

3. I'm thankful that our finances are so tight, because it keeps me working hard, focusing on my writing CAREER and not letting anything else interfere and make our sacrifices pointless.

4. I'm thankful for my preteen's mood swings, because being mad at me for not letting her read Betty and Veronica instead of boy issues or something is a good thing.

5. I'm thankful that my office flooded...well, no, I guess I can't find a positive side of that one.

I'm thankful for the world I'm accessing at the moment--for all of you who read this blog and make me believe my dreams will come true. Happy Thanksgiving.

Isis!

This tickles me not because it seems at all accurate, but because Isis is my niece. :)

Isis Honorable, straightforward and idealistic. Active and self-confident. Colors: male: white, female: blue Compatible Signs: Osiris, Thoth Dates: Mar 11 - Mar 31, Oct 18 - Oct 29, Dec 19 - Dec 31 Role: Goddess of motherhood, women, and magic; goddess of the South; protector of Imseti (the son of Horus who watched over the canopic jar containing the liver) Appearance: Woman wearing the hieroglyph for "throne" on her head What is Your Egyptian Zodiac Sign? Designed by CyberWarlock of Warlock's Quizzles and Quandaries

Planning Into a Corner

Mindless activity like showers and driving trigger my creative brain. Sometimes my analytical brain, too, or both together. The other day, I had a shower like that. It gave me this blog post.

I write linearly. I start at the beginning and write to the end. I'll edit as I go, and usually once I hit about 100 pages and again around 2/3 of the way through the book I'll do a complete run-through, to find threads I dropped or fill out some plot or characterization, now that I know where the story is going and who the main characters are. When I'm done with the first draft, I run through the whole book once, go through a critique cycle with some trusted partners, then print and proof the final copy.

The story will start percolating long before I write the first word, and it continues to bubble as I go. It never completely leaves my mind, and scenes will often develop while I'm doing that mindless activity I mentioned (can add dishes and laundry to the list). I might jot notes or a few lines of dialogue as soon as I can get to a pen. If the scene is the next one in the book, I might pull out the Alphasmart and get the bones down until I can get to the main document.

But I never, ever (almost never) write ahead.

I didn't really know why until recently. I thought I was just stubborn, or that it stemmed from my need to discover the story just the way I do when I read someone else's book. But a couple of things happened that gave me more insight into my own process.

The first was that my opening of my last book stank. It often does. I have an idea of what I expect the book to be, and I write the opening to that expectation. Then the story and tone and characters evolve, and the majority of the book is very different from that opening. But for some reason, when I edit on my own, I have a hard time doing away with it. I'm not married to my words, for the most part. I cut scenes all the time, saving them in a "discard" file in case I want to use them (and rarely do). So it takes someone else telling me "this doesn't work" before I can disconnect myself from it and change it.

And that's why I don't write ahead, even if a scene forms in my mind that's perfect. I'm afraid I'll write it, then when the time comes to fit it together with the rest of the book, it won't work and I won't be able to let go of it.

The other thing that happened that made me come to this realization was that I did it. I wrote some of the last chapter of my last book, well ahead of time. It was a tone I didn't want to lose, and an aide--I didn't know which potential hero the heroine was going to choose, and writing that scene helped me figure it out. Which made writing the scenes before it much easier, because they set up that choice at the end. I wasn't consciously sure until I finished the scene, but my subconscious knew. It just wanted the rest of me to have the fun of finding out at the last minute.

Since it worked so well with that book, I was wondering why I don't do it all the time. And that's when I realized I was protecting myself from a harder job down the line.

Anyone else feel like this?

Tarot

You are The Devil

Materiality. Material Force. Material temptation; sometimes obsession

The Devil is often a great card for business success; hard work and ambition.

Perhaps the most misunderstood of all the major arcana, the Devil is not really "Satan" at all, but Pan the half-goat nature god and/or Dionysius. These are gods of pleasure and abandon, of wild behavior and unbridled desires. This is a card about ambitions; it is also synonymous with temptation and addiction. On the flip side, however, the card can be a warning to someone who is too restrained, someone who never allows themselves to get passionate or messy or wild - or ambitious. This, too, is a form of enslavement. As a person, the Devil can stand for a man of money or erotic power, aggressive, controlling, or just persuasive. This is not to say a bad man, but certainly a powerful man who is hard to resist. The important thing is to remember that any chain is freely worn. In most cases, you are enslaved only because you allow it.

What Tarot Card are You?
Take the Test to Find Out.

Frustrations

I don't like the rule that says you can't have JUST the car's "check engine" light go on, or JUST have the dog losing more weight even though she's eating double her prior food intake, or have JUST the cat continue her litter box rebellion no matter what you do. You HAVE to have the office flood during torrential downpours, too.

Dammit.

So, yeah. No computer for a few days. Insurance doesn't cover seepage that doesn't come from some kind of break or malfunction. Sharp, cramping pain in the lower back and shoulder due to the tedious, bent-over task of trying to wet-vac the water out of the carpet.

And no Supernatural for two weeks. At least.

Dammit.

Didn't get much writing done today. About 2K, I think, though I'd planned another cafe day and 6K, which would have gotten me to the end point of NaNo. Tomorrow, I hope. Thank god for my laptop.

Studio 60 was picked up for the full season! Yay! They listened to me! What? I wrote to them. I couldn't have been the only one, though I haven't heard if they've given a reason for picking it up when it was rumored to be yanked soon. I LOVED LOVED LOVED the last two episodes, and my husband even enjoyed it. So much that he mentioned it TWICE.

I have two more episodes of Veronica Mars season 2. That disk should come tomorrow, and then I'll catch up on this season. Perfect timing, with half my shows going on T-giving haitus.

Smallville is still a big disappointment to me. I'm sorry, the last 8 seconds of last night's show were not only NOT a shocker, they were annoying. I never liked Lana. Lana with Lex makes me not like Lex. Especially when Clark is reduced to running around in circles at a dockyard for, like, 7 minutes of the show, and then NOT getting his bad guy. WHY do they think it's a good idea to make Smallville the "Not About Clark Kent Show"?

Will I be villified if I admit to not being blown away by Supernatural this week, either? Don't get me wrong, there was still much to love. It just rehashed stuff that's been well established. I'm really looking forward to the shows previewed in "Soon," for sure. I am not a fan of guns, but the Winchester brothers packing so much heat is...guh.

I'm hoping to get to some movies this weekend. Definitely Happy Feet as a family. The previews have been cracking me up for months:

"Why you huggin' me, man?"
"He tole me toooo."
"Stop it."
"No, you liiiike it."

I also want to see Stranger Than Fiction, and might sneak away Sunday night for that. Oh, and the Harry Potter and the Order of the Phoenix trailer is supposed to be playing before Happy Feet. That will be worth the price of admission, alone. LOL

I don't talk about books much on here, mainly because I don't want to talk about a friend's book and have another friend feel bad because I didn't mention hers, and I won't talk about books I don't like--and I don't like a lot of them. But I just finished Stephanie Rowe's Must Love Dragons, and it was really good. It had more substance than a lot of "fun, quirky" books do, and the heroine didn't drive me nuts with superficiality. Check it out.

Okay, I think I'm done rambling for tonight. My laptop has been running for hours and hours and it's making me sweat. I have to get away!

Productivity

I've been reading posts by participants in NaNoWriMo. I added a lot of people to my buddy list, and of course their word counts run the gamut of "no word count" to high 30K. Most of the blogs I've read are enthusiastic, positive progress reports, regardless of how "well" or how "bad" those people are doing. And my competitiveness (see earlier post that shows the evil side of me) has been at war with my compassion. I don't want people to look at my word count and feel bad that they are behind it, whether it's a few steps behind or miles.

I posted in a comment to MaryF the other day that my writing is now my day job. People who are squeezing NaNo in around work, family, and other responsibilities shouldn't compare themselves to people who don't have that stuff. (I'm not saying anyone does--I just know I would, if things were reversed.)

I've also been writing for publication for 13 years. This is my 14th completed novel. I've finished drafts in 3 years and in 8 weeks. But the most important thing I've learned in all that time and with all those books, is that writing is like any other exercise. The more you do it, the better you get.

It's not JUST a matter of practicing getting the words from your head to the screen (or paper). Writing faster isn't only a function of typing speed. It's also a function of craft and process. The more we write, the better we understand how our creativity works. When we do things that work for us instead of make us struggle, the flow comes faster. When we figure out story structure and characterization and goal/motivation/conflict (especially conflict), the story becomes easier to write, which means, usually, faster.

I heard Suzanne Brockmann do a workshop once where she said you have to determine what kind of writer you want to be, set goals, and then work toward those goals. She wanted to be fast. She knew that if she was fast, she'd be able to sell more books a year. If she came in early on her deadlines, editors would know she could be counted on. They'd also know that if they got into a tight spot, they could count on her to fill a hole in the schedule. So she set out to write fast, and it worked for her.

I didn't necessarily set out that way, but by the time I heard her workshop, I knew I wanted to be the same. So I worked at it, and about six years later, I succeeded. Not everyone needs to have that goal, or should. But hopefully NaNo or any other writing exercise can help each participant learn something about themselves and their process so the next time, whatever is holding them back now won't be a factor.

Being Alone

In that weird blog synergy that often happens, no less than two authors who I am very sure don't read each other have both posted about being hermits.

So now I'm going to, too. :)

It's something I find a lot of, in the writing world. And that's kind of logical, isn't it? We have to be able to be content in our own brains to be able to do what we do. And a lot of the time, what we do requires us to stay deep in those brains, undistracted and unannoyed by the day-to-day chaos that surrounds many of us.

I don't know any writers who are complete hermits and avoid all human contact, a la The Net. Of course, if they were that level of hermit, they'd be hard to know. But most of us love getting together for writer's meetings, conferences, book events, parties...and then are very, very happy to go home again.

When I first started writing, 10 years ago (I'd actually already been writing for three years, but I'd finally joined RWA and my local chapter), four of our members had attended National, and roomed together. One was describing the whirlwind that is that conference, and she said by the end, they were four people in four corners of the room with their faces buried in books. For me, that sums it up completely.

I love people, but only some people. I want to get together with them, talk their ears off and require glue for my own, brainstorm and be high-energy and soak in the support of their friendships. Then, unless such event was less than an hour (and it never is), I'm drained. I need to be alone to recharge. I know there are people who are the opposite. They need to be around others to have any energy. I think those are the people who go into sales and become CEOs. They can have it.

I'll hunker down here in my lovely office, surrounded by my obsessions, with my lifeline to the world that I can turn off at my whim, and be alone with my brain.

Damn Cats

My dining room table is, in rare status, completely cleaned off. This morning I'd been using my laptop on the table, and when I packed it up, I left my wireless adapter there. Since I wasn't taking it with me to the cafe (the better to avoid distraction), I decided not to leave it on the table. It's a cat playground. They bat down whatever's up there, then bat it all over the house, until we can't find it when we're looking. So I moved it to the desk.

When I came home four hours later, I looked for it.

And looked, and looked, and looked. I didn't trust my memory, so I looked in EVERY POSSIBLE place it could be.

Until I found it. In a paper bag on the floor at the base of the desk.

Damn Cats.

I Changed My Mind...Kinda

I've never liked reality TV. I've watched bits and pieces here and there of shows like Survivor and American Idol and The Bachelor and even Fear Factor, when my husband had it on. I never liked any of them. I was disgusted by previews of such shows as Wife Swap and Temptation Island. So when NBC announced that they were going to drastically reduce scripted shows in the 8:00 hour and fill their schedule with reality, I wasn't very happy.

Unfortunately, the 8:00 "family hour" is pretty much gone. I mentioned The Cosby Show a few posts ago. Good, wholesome family TV. I suppose there's a lot of that on cable now. The Disney Channel and Nickelodeon maybe fill the bill. But it's not the same when those shows are on all day long. There's no "event." Nothing to look forward to the way I can't wait for Supernatural on Thursday night.

But my kids feel that way about one show that's on network TV: Dancing with the Stars. I admit, I've got no problems with this show (though the costumes could be a little less skimpy sometimes). Celebrities are turned into real people. They have to be humble, because they're doing something they've never done before, and learning it at a competitive level. This isn't like a couple taking lessons so they can waltz at their wedding. The judges are tough, and have very high expectations. It's all about hard work and taking constructive criticism, good lessons for my kids to witness.

Competition is good for them to see, too. Nowadays they don't learn it so much. Sports are about having fun, and comparison between students is avoided at all costs in the classroom. But they won't always be able to avoid it, and watching GOOD competition is excellent. When I say "good" I mean the kind where contestants say things like "Don't get me wrong, I really want to win this thing, but it's been so rewarding, just coming out here and pushing myself to do something I never thought I could do," as opposed to the kind where people yell things like, "That bitch ain't gettin' MY money!" and lie and cheat and steal to win.

In fact, respect is a highlight of this show. Everyone displays respect for the other dancers, and there's a camaraderie that shows that competition doesn't have to preclude friendship.

I realized, when thinking about this, that the shows that have really meant something to my kids and to us as a family as "event TV" have always been reality shows. In the Fix was daily viewing for a while, with a funny, "incompetent" host and funny, skilled workers who turned rooms into amazing places to live. Now it's Dirty Jobs, with another funny, incompetent host and a pretty educational premise. My kids are fascinated by some of the jobs out there, jobs we never knew existed but have an appreciation for (mainly, that someone else does them).

Then there's the original reality show. Known to my kids as "AFV," America's Funniest Home Videos has been on since MY childhood, and the content is as funny and appropriate as ever. With REAL people who aren't being paid to be on TV, either.

So okay. Maybe Reality TV is okay sometimes.

OMG, I just Friended Nathan Fillion!

God, I love the Internet.

And no, I'm not telling you his MySpace account name. He's MY friend. Me and only 2,174 other people.

I was telling Jim about how Nathan watches Dirty Jobs, and his heroes are his dad and his brother (awww!) and Jim offered to divorce me so I could marry him. *sigh* Do I have a great husband or what?


I didn't tell Jim I'd rather save that offer for when Jensen Ackles proposes. Megan thinks Dean and Sam didn't stop on their way to Baltimore because they didn't need the rock salt she was selling. It's really that they were late because they were with ME!

Overuse

In every book, I have a different habit that ends up being overused. In my last book, it was the heroine asking herself questions all the time:

What was that about? Was he going to try to get an “in” with me because he was romantically interested in her? Or did he think I’d tell him something he could use against her?

In my current work in progress, my characters keep LOOKING. They look at each other, they look at the computer, they look at the numbers on the elevator. They give looks, too. Smug looks, surprised looks, heated looks. And they don't stop there! No, they also have to look haggard, or upset, or joyful. Their injuries look painful, their surroundings look tidy. I've used every variation of "look" and all its synonyms, and I'm not even a third of the way through the book.

I'm way ahead on NaNo, though, which is a good thing, and only slightly behind on my full goal. Because the NaNo word widgets update automatically by pulling your profile number, I'm just putting mine in the sidebar now, in replace of the original participant icon.

Back to work!

Pebbles in the Pond

I'm sure I've mentioned this before, but hey. It's my blog. I can be repetitive if I want to be. If you've heard it, stop here, and I'll see you tomorrow! *g*

I had one of those moments yesterday. The moments that represent why writing is such pure joy for me, and why I will never be good at plotting in advance of writing.

I'm 99 pages into my book. I still don't know who the villain is. I'm afraid my output is about to slow down because I'm only 99 pages in and I am uncertain what happens next. But the scenes I wrote yesterday are the pebbles in the pond that have started ripples that are already forming waves.

In yesterday's scenes, Q and D were on their way to BH when S was in a [blank]. When S described what happened, he said [blankety blank blank]. In scenes I wrote earlier in the week, Q and D were in a hotel when [blank] happened, and [blank] did not, and I wasn't sure why [blankety blank blank]. Those are the pebbles.

While I was making my kids dinner last night, I realized [blankety blank blank] was because the culprit is [blank], who until now was a vaguely formed character with an important, but undetermined role. This character, M, it turns out, did [blank] and [blank] to keep the bad guy away from [blank], which means even though she's YOUNGER than Q, she's much more powerful, and won't THAT be interesting?

Who to blame, who to blame...

You know how I posted my schedule last week? About fitting in certain things, and adapting to my chaos?

Yeah. That went all to hell.

First, you know, it's NaNo month. I'm managing a LITTLE bit of cleaning. The bare necessities. Or more accurately, the furry necessities. Like feeding the furfaces and cleaning the litter box that is now in the living room because we're trying to keep the damned cat from going downstairs and the $40 CatScram isn't WORKING and that's a totally other subject. How did I get there?

Anyway.

NaNo's messin' with me. I've been at my keyboard at EIGHT O'CLOCK two days in a row. I haven't exercised or done dishes, and I've been showering at three in the afternoon, after Number Two gets home and I can't write, but that's the start of family time so I'm feeling guilty.

Hard to complain with the progress, though.

Then there's my TiVo problem. I can't yell at the kids anymore for filling it up. I have all of this season's Veronica Mars recorded, but can't watch them 'cause I'm just starting season 2. But because I was watching season 1, I have two episodes of Prison Break, one of Heroes, two of The Class (which I can do without, but I find it amusing so I'll watch it while it's on), one of Studio 60, one of Ugly Betty, one of Numb3rs...maybe one of Twenty Good Years, if it was on last week, but I'll probably delete that unwatched. It looks like it might have been canceled. I wish they'd cancel 30 Rock.

Hey! ANOTHER tangent. Sheesh.

I'll be adding Lost and The Nine (oh, yeah, I didn't watch The Nine last week, either) tonight, Ugly Betty tomorrow, Numb3rs on Friday...and I'll never catch up, because I have disk 1 of VM season 2 today and I have to see who showed up at her door (I'm assuming Duncan) and what happened between Logan and Weevil when Logan was on the bridge. I'll watch Smallville and Supernatural tomorrow, the only two shows I watch as they air, and NOTHING will keep me from Supernatural, but Friday I'll have another VM and yet another on Saturday, and I can't catch up on EVERYTHING on Sunday, even if I could just be a lazeabout and watch TV all day, which I can't because football's on.

Which is...watching TV. But, you know, different.

Yeah, they lost on Sunday night. Thanks for dredging THAT up. Nice friend you are. Go back to your stupid Steelers, what are they? Two and six? Um-hm. Thought that would shut you up.

So. Apparently my messed schedule has messed with my brain, too. I have a feeling this post sounds kind of manic and not at all like me. So I'm not going to read it again.

I've scared myself.

Totally Bogus

What American accent do you have? Your Result: The Inland North   You may think you speak "Standard English straight out of the dictionary" but when you step away from the Great Lakes you get asked annoying questions like "Are you from Wisconsin?" or "Are you from Chicago?" Chances are you call carbonated drinks "pop."
The Northeast
Philadelphia
The Midland
The South
Boston
The West
North Central
What American accent do you have? Take More Quizzes

Nope, not even close.

I spent the first 17 years of my life in Western Massachusetts, and the way I talk hasn't changed (haven't lived anywhere else long enough to be affected by it). And I will NEVER say "pop." If you ask me for pop, I won't give you anything. I'd bet anything that if someone who didn't know me or anything about me was asked where they thought I was from based on the way I talk, they wouldn't know.

Totally bogus quiz.

Competitive? Me?

I write pretty fast, and now that I'm writing full time (or at least, the six hours the kids are at school, minus lunch), I should be even faster. So I kind of expected to blow through NaNo, and so far, I am, even though I slowed waaayyyyy down the last three days.



I'm only a couple thousand words over the goal now, but should surge ahead again during the week. I'm 40 pages behind my goal to finish the whole book in 30 days, but that's really a far stretch, anyway. I don't really write on the weekends anymore, and there isn't a compelling reason to finish the book that fast except to see if I can do it.

However, I find my ego soundly and necessarily deflated. I was pretty cocky the first few days, thinking it wouldn't be too hard to lead the pack of all the buddies I added to my NaNo buddy list.

SEVEN people got ahead of me this weekend. And it's driving me crazy. I must work harder, pound out those words. I MUST BE AT THE TOP.

Why? Well, it's definitely not because I need to be superior to my friends and acquaintances and my father-in-law's cousin. It's exciting to see all those word counts and know everyone is doing well. I'm really, really impressed with the person who has 18,288 words. I'm not going to be crowing about my word count and how great I am, and I never, ever want my accomplishments to cause anyone to feel bad about themselves.

It's a Capricorn thing, and I've had it all my life. In high school, I had a friend who'd become a mother at 14. She was in the top 15 of our class, like me, and we had a lot of the same courses. We were numbers one and two in the sophmore fundraiser (she got the stereo, thanks to her gigantic family). And I about killed myself joining club after committee after team, trying to keep up with her. It got to where my mother worried about my stress level and my boyfriend complained he never saw me before I backed off, accepted I wasn't going to match her, and just concentrated on myself.

About eight years ago my local chapter go a new member. For a while, she was following in my footsteps. I had a baby, she had a baby. I edited the chapter newsletter, she edited the chapter newsletter. I had another baby and agreed to be chapter vice president; so did she. I sold to a small press. She sold to a different small press. My first one closed, and I sold to a second. She disliked her first, and followed editors to a second. Then things changed. She started soaring within that realm. She sold title after title. Editors at bigger houses were saying good things about her work. I started to feel toward her like I'd felt toward my high school best friend.

Luckily, I recognized it and released the competitive drive. She's one of my closest friends now, and it doesn't bother me at ALL that she's contracted five books to Harlequin Spice and I'm still struggling to make my first big sale.

So I know how to keep my competitiveness in check. I think with NaNo it can be a good thing. It's making me work harder. I had to think about where I wanted my story to go while I was raking leaves at 7:30 this morning, rather than wait until I got to the computer. Tonight, if I haven't gotten far enough during the day, I need to write some more instead of watching TV. I have to stop editing, stop counting my words every ten minutes, and put in brackets instead of spending an hour researching Ohio alcohol server age laws and flights from Columbus to Boston.

I have a feeling I won't catch some of these people, and that's okay. It's much more important that in the end, I've improved myself somehow as a writer. If I inspire someone else the way they're inspiring me, well, that would be the molten chocolate drizzle on the organic strawberry crepe.

NaNo Progress, Day 3

Full Head Friday

I should be writing, but my mind has been stuffed full of thoughts, making it difficult to concentrate on the moon (a major feature in my new book). So here they are:

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I hate raking leaves. I have three fabulous maples in my back yard, and they carry a ton of leaves and drop them late. For three or four weeks in a row, we have to cart the equivalent of a pile ten feet long and three-to-four feet high to the front of the house for pickup. And every time I see one flutter past my window, I growl.

This fall has been uncharacteristically gorgeous, though. For several years we had whatever conditions mean uniformly yellow or brown leaves, and that's it. This year the trees are flaming orange and red and muted shades in between, and the weather has been lovely this week. I get happy every time I go out of the house.

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That happiness is short-lived, however. As much as I love fall (my favorite season), it's accompanied by a growing dread as the days get shorter and shorter. I don't suffer from true seasonal affective disorder, but my mood is definitely suppressed during the winter. I hope that will be different this year, since I won't be driving home from work in the dark.

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Big football game this weekend! HUGE! There are currently two undefeated teams in the NFL right now, the Indianapolis Colts and the Chicago Bears. The team right behind them with only one loss is the New England Patriots, and they play both the Colts and the Bears in the next four weeks. Colts this Sunday night, a huge rivalry that has peppered the Super Bowl winning seasons of the Patriots. I like Peyton Manning a lot--he and Tom Brady are two of the classiest guys in the league, and they are both extremely talented. Which means this will be a fabulous game. I can't wait!

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I started watching Veronica Mars on DVD. I'm two-thirds of the way through the first season, and I really like it. But it's weird. Usually when I like something this much, I don't see the flaws. I'm all about the pleasure of watching. Also, when I see as many flaws as I saw in the beginning of the season, I don't like a show as much as I do this one.

Maybe the first episode set me up with expectations that were less fulfilled as the season went on. For example, the show began with a cliche that I HATE: that she's never getting married, that the people you love always let you down. Wah wah wah. I thought the date rape was just going too far. She'd had enough piled on her, and that doesn't mesh with everything else. Maybe when they reveal who did it I'll feel differently, but so far, it seems like just another way for her to feel sorry for herself in voiceover/flashback.

I don't dislike those flashbacks, but I find it impossible to reconcile the Veronica Before The World Caved In with the Veronica of the present. She was a follower, mild, naive, and apparently blind to what assholes her friends were until they became assholes to her. At which point she became fearless, strong, and cynical. I understand the logic of the progression, but there's still too much disconnect for me.

The last thing I don't like is that every time she believes in someone, they turn out to be evil. There's Troy--sweet, funny, immune to peer pressure, afraid of her dad--and then suddenly he's 100% bad without warning. Fabulous Veronica figures it out, foils him, and never mentions or thinks about him again. Then we have her lecherous history teacher, a lovelorn client who's really Russian mafia...it's a never-ending parade of people out to strip her of hope forever.

The reason why it's okay is because it DOESN'T strip her of hope, not completely. She manages to hold on to it somewhere, even as her shell hardens and cracks repeatedly.

So that's enough of what I DON'T like. More than enough, because I like it enough to stay up to 1:00 a.m. three nights in a row watching it. I love Veronica's fearlessness and smarts and her ability to make friends with a very diverse group of people. I love Leo and Keith Mars and Weevil and Wallace and the mysteries and (oh, wait, one more thing--it really, really bugs me that her mother let her go out with Duncan, maybe have sex with him [she doesn't know, for sure, that they never did], when he could be her BROTHER).

Interestingly, my favorite character has become Logan. He was such a dick in the first few episodes, and they've slowly shown him to be very complex. Somehow, even with a totally cliched background (spoiled rich kid, physically abused, probably ignored by his mother, taunted by his sister, blah blah blah), he's managed to be very sympathetic. I give full credit to Jason Dohring, because even though the writing has to be good, the actor has to sell it. I really fell for him when he broke down in Veronica's arms in the hotel where he thought his mother had been staying after her "death."

So, the best thing about this show? I have 32 more episodes to watch!

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Speaking of shows that give me pleasure...

Supernatural was a bit of a disappointment last night. Surprisingly, it wasn't Jo who disappointed me. I liked the way she acquitted herself, and alone, I like her. I think the relationship drawn between her and Dean is more sibling-ish than romantic-tension-y, though, which made what could have been the best line of the show, "Should have cleaned the pipes," kind of stupid. There'd been no indication before that that she turned him on. No tension between them in the writing or in the chemistry between actors. So I'll be really happy if the writers don't take things in that direction.

But my biggest complaint is that in inserting Jo into the dynamic, they obliterated their strengths, the things that make this show so damned compelling. Sam was marginalized, and the brother-brother relationship totally ignored. I'm not saying I want them to address the demon storyline every week, not at all. I just want more interaction between Sam and Dean. More of the interplay of emotion and expression. Don't send Sam offscreen for ten minutes while Dean and Jo crawl through the walls. Give me:

"So I'm a freak now?"
"Dude, you've always been a freak."

I didn't buy the episode ending very well, either. If Ellen broke with John, what, 18 years ago, when her husband was killed, why did she call him four months before he died, acting like John not talking to her was on his side? She's all, "like father, like sons," and I can understand her fear for her daughter, but that doesn't explain why Jo would now be disgusted with Dean and Sam. It was HER plan to be bait, and blaming them for their father's mistake is just stupid.

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Amber Quill Press has posted their October bestsellers, and every one of them contained male/male relationships or menage situations. I've long heard through the grapevine that those are the best sellers at other publishers, as well, and that the readership is overwhelmingly straight female.

Google Alerts recently added blog alerts, and my Supernatural alerts are full of "Wincest" fan fiction. You don't have to stray far to find Lex/Clark and other slash fiction, either (those are the two that connect to my own interests, so I'm not going to comment on anything else).

I am not into gay erotica at all, and I don't care to read or see details of male/male sexuality in general. But one of the powerful and evocative images for me in the last year was the scene in Brokeback Mountain where Ennis dragged Jack around the corner and kissed him.

I have a kind of half-baked theory about this, and I don't think the attraction for women is truly sexual, no matter how we present our reactions to it. For two decades (maybe longer, I don't know, I'm only 35 *g*) our society acted like men don't feel. They don't hug, they don't tell their kids they love them, they don't want to talk about emotions or relationships, and when they HAVE emotions and relationships, they are different from the same emotions and relationships from the woman's perspective.

I say bullshit, and it looks to me like a helluva lot of creative people in my generation are saying the same thing. Lex and Clark had extremely strong feelings for each other, as do Sam and Dean. They aren't sexual feelings, but they are extremely powerful. Exploration of the relationship between Ennis and Jack in Brokeback Mountain almost always talks about how the story was about the love they felt for each other, not the physical desire.

I think these powerful emotions are as strong to us as sexual desire is. They probably just stimulate the same hormones, but what we end up doing is equating the two, which is what leads to the slash fanfic and fantasizing as a more concrete way to get the fix. It's like...the smell of chocolate makes us feel good. Some people would be satisfied to just keep smelling it (like I'm satisfied to just see Sam and Dean be brotherly). Others would HAVE to taste it, and maybe add liquor to it, to increase the rush (or write sexual stories about the brothers).

I'm generalizing, and even if I'm somewhat right, I'm sure it can't apply to everyone. But I like my theory, and I'll be pleased if those-who-strive-to-entertain-us will give us more of the same.

NaNo Progress, Day 2

Well, apparently NaNoers have crashed Zokutou, so I have no progress bar. But day one I did 2926 and today I did 3115, so I'm not only on track to make the 50K, I'm on track to finish the book.

Go me!

And go, everyone else, whether you've gotten 15 or 1500 words. You're working hard, and that's all that matters!

I Don’t Do Dishes On Wednesday

When I first quit my day job to write full time, I was determined to have a set schedule to make sure everything got addressed. It worked pretty well during the summer, but now that we have so many more demands on our minutes, it all went to hell.

My plan was always to fit in (in no particular order):

Cleaning
Exercise
Writing
Family stuff
Marketing

My reality has been…inconsistent, to say the least. I’ve been lamenting my failure. Especially when it means the house is a hellhole and I have to spend all day Sunday cleaning it.

But I realized yesterday morning that it’s not as bad as it seems. Sure, I let the house go here and there. But that’s just because I hate cleaning, and I hate even more losing time I should be writing or relaxing to cleaning. And okay, I haven’t kept up my daily walking regimen. I didn’t walk Tuesday. Or today. In fact, I didn’t walk at all last week. But I haven’t given up totally, which is my normal MO.

The kids’ schedules dictate a lot. For example, I DO consistently do dishes all week. Except on Wednesdays. Every other day, I do them between putting kid #2 on the bus and putting kid #1 on the bus. On Wednesdays, #1 has to be at school early, which means I don’t have time for dishes, which means I don’t bother doing them when I get home. Because that’s writing time.

See? Schedule. :)

I am always telling writers that they need to find the methods that work best for them, which often means trying a lot of things, learning others’ methods, etc. So what I should do is embrace the chaos in my schedule and work around it, keeping the most important thing in mind:

Protect the writing time.

Hey, Browncoats! Get Over It

Let me preface by saying I am a dedicated Browncoat. I listen to Firefly Talk and The Signal podcasts every week. I bought nine copies of the DVD and gave them to everyone I could for Christmas last year. I talk about Firefly INCESSANTLY and constantly try to convert people who have yet to watch the TV show or the movie. I care. A lot. And I want another movie, at minimum.

I can't find much in the news about this; it's pretty much rehashing of the same six lines of text. Apparently, Universal, the movie studio who owns the rights to all things Serenity, has issued cease and desist orders to certain fans who are making money off of unlicensed merchandise. The report is that they have also demanded $9,000 in license fees from one party. The fans are, also apparently, WAY up in arms against Universal's "evil" act.

The main reason for the outcry is because Universal encouraged grassroots marketing/viral marketing when the movie came out last summer. Basically, that means they wanted fans to talk about it to non-fans and get them to see the movie. It failed. The movie made less worldwide than its very small budget of $39 million. A year later, it remains hugely popular among the cult (i.e. Browncoats) and we are constantly trying to increase said fanbase in an effort to get a sequel. The whiners are now saying Universal is slapping us in the face for doing what they told us to do.

But you know what? The whiners are wrong.

First, making money off of someone else's property is illegal*. Universal is not only way within their rights to stop it, they are OBLIGATED to do so. Part of trademark law is that you have to defend your trademark or risk losing it. There are DOZENS of ways fans have furthered the cause without financial gain, so crying that this is unfair because they are only marketing Universal's property is ridiculous. People buy shirts that say "Nike" and "Tommy Hilfiger" all over them and never ask for a marketing discount. So just quitcher bitchin.

Also, it should (and has) occur to people that it's a great sign that Universal feels this property is worth defending. It could just be because QMx officially licensed some Serenity products that Universal woke up to the possibility that more money could be made off this investment that failed, and in order to be able to do that, they have to make an effort to eliminate the unlicensed merchandise. But it could also be that they are seeing that the fanbase is growing, and the potential for a successful sequel is growing with it.

So instead of being childish whiners, let's rejoice.

*Please note that I am not a trademark attorney, my understanding of this stuff is rudimentary, and there's a possibility I'm not completely accurate.

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Thank you to Tom, who provided this link with much more information. What I said stands regarding the outcry, but it sounds like the attorneys were a bit overzealous. I'm glad it's all resolved positively!

Creeeepy

I'm handing out Halloween candy--actually on Halloween for the first time in 8 years, thanks to Pennsylvania's whacked theories about Halloween--and something creeepy just happened.

My headstone shrieked.

Thunder crashed, lights flashed, the faux stone and the red-eyed skeleton popped out, accompanied by shrill screams.

Not the first time tonight, of course. But this time...

...there was no one on my doorstep.

The Possibility in Fantasy

There are all kinds of celebrity nowadays, and I find it very exciting. Not because I want to be a celebrity--I really, really don't--but because the ease and variety of the path to becoming one makes my greatest fantasies possible.

Well, okay, not the one where Matthew McConaughey, Orlando Bloom, and Nathan Fillion all fight over who gets me. That one is pretty unlikely. Especially 'cause of the whole "happily married" thing.

But the wall between "regular person" and "celebrity" is virtually non-existent. Sure, there are distasteful ways to become a celebrity. You can be rich and bored enough to do crazy things to get attention and attract cameras. You can go on a reality show to display your most negative traits to the world so later you can be recognized in Wal-Mart. But more than ever, regular people have opportunities to showcase their talents and their personalities to the world.

Celebrity is wider-ranging than it used to be. Now it's not just the people whose faces are on the screen, the "beautiful people." It's also the ones who put them there--writers and directors like Joss Whedon and JJ Abrams and Eric Kripke--and even the fans who love them.

Take the Harry Potter fandom. It's huge, and there are tons of web sites dedicated to discussing and disseminating information about the books and movies. Last year, JK Rowling invited the leaders of the top two sites, The Leaky Cauldron and MuggleNet, to interview her in her home the day after the release of Harry Potter and the Half-Blood Prince. What followed was an amazing year. PotterCast and MuggleCast became two of the top podcasts, winning awards and launching teenage boys from Kansas and young mothers in Ohio to stardom. They attended the premiere of Goblet of Fire in New York last winter, and in a three-month span this year did an SRO live podcast in Las Vegas, attended the reading/Q&A of JK Rowling, Stephen King, and John Irving in New York city, won Podcast Awards in LA, and visited the set of Order of the Phoenix in the UK. Every live podcast they do starts with fifteen minutes of screaming, cheering fans who are as excited to see them as they would be to see Dan Radcliffe and Emma Watson. These are just regular people doing something they love and being hugely rewarded for it.

And that's why I think some of my fantasies are possible. Like the one where my awesome agent, who has some solid Hollywood connections, brings Orlando Bloom to the RWA Readers for Life Literacy Autographing to pick me up and go to dinner where we'll discuss his interest in making a movie of my book, Soul of the Dragon.

Or the one where Jensen Ackles gets a mortgage from Countrywide in Dallas. My brother works there, and occasionally reads this blog, so he'll know about my interest in the very talented actor from the TV show Supernatural and the upcoming indie film Ten Inch Hero, and when his boss asks him to be the last-minute fourth in a round of golf with Jensen and his father, Andy will tell Jensen about my books, which will of course lead to Jensen (and Jared Padalecki, who's hanging out with him at home while they're on haitus) meeting me for dinner when I fly down to visit my brother and his wife. He'd be perfect for the role of the hero in my new book, which would also make a great movie.

See how possible that is?

Regression

I recently caught a glimpse of an essay that complained about Supernatural being the anti-Buffy, and basically a regression from strong female roles. It discussed that the only strong woman on season one was evil, and the two "good girls" were murdered early on and never replaced.

This kind of resonated with me, because lately the TV shows I've liked (since Alias was canceled, anyway), I've liked because of the men and not the women, and I've felt guilty about it. I worship Joss Whedon, who is all about the strong female characters and does them damned well. So liking Supernatural, after I skimmed this essay, made me feel disloyal to both my gender and a writer I respect and adore and aspire to be like (though I'll never come close to his wit).

I've been thinking about this a lot, and I've decided it's okay to like Supernatural the way it is. And not just because it's my favorite show and I hate feeling guilty.

First, they have added a strong female role, small though the part may be. There is evidence that another female character may be getting similar treatment (her debut was perfect), though I don't like her and don't want her to have a much bigger role in the show.

Also, I don't think EVERYTHING in life has to address every issue. Supernatural isn't about women and their roles in demon-hunting society. It's about two brothers and the journey they are on. The relationship between Sam and Dean is most important, and the biggest influence on them (besides their father) has been the absence of a strong woman in their lives. There's nothing wrong with their dynamic. It hasn't caused them to subjugate women, or dismiss them, or treat them poorly.

Okay, that last line is open to interpretation. Early in season one, Dean seemed to be a player. While Sam mourned his girlfriend's death, Dean encouraged him to get laid. He flirts with a certain type of woman--the type that seems open to short, meaningless encounters. He doesn't think a woman has a place in his life.

But things aren't that simple. When Sam has an interest in Sarah, Dean encourages him to develop it; and not just to have sex with her. Then we see that Dean had a girlfriend, loved her, confessed all to her--and was badly burned when she freaked out. He still has feelings for her, but it's clear that even though she believes him now, she can't live his kind of life.

See? Complexity.

I am thrilled when a show contains a heroine like Sydney Bristow or Zoe Washburn, a tough, powerful, confident, emotional woman. But not every show needs one.

Miss Sunny...Idiot?

It seems many topics on blogs I frequent have recently focused on the darker side of humanity on many different levels. I've been hopping all over, spreading my sunny naivete, giving tons of credit to my fellow humans, and I started to wonder if I'm just being an idiot.

Open any newspaper, turn on the TV...heck, walk across the street or drive down the highway, and there is evidence that we live in a world of mean, nasty, selfish, horrible people. I constantly contend that they are the loud minority, that most people are good and open-minded and caring and well-behaved. I also contended recently that people are no more vicious and horrible than they ever were, we just have more forums for them to be that way.

But am I wrong?

After I posted on Erica Orloff's blog, I went out, and no less than three people in 15 minutes displayed the kind of behavior that makes humans look like dirtbags. I started wondering if I'm totally wrong, and people like us are the real minority. Then Erica disagreed with me that people are just as vitriolic in person as they are on the Internet, and I'm not sure she's wrong. I want her to be. Desperately. But she knows more people than I do, and a much wider variety of people, as well. And just because I haven't SEEN it doesn't mean it's not real.

I started thinking about that, too. I don't see the viciousness of which she speaks, on the Internet, but I'm not LOOKING. Part of it is seeking people who are of a like mind as myself, and part of is it subconscious avoidance of more public realms where such things are displayed. Yet even as I admit I could be sheltering myself and therefore shading my viewpoint...well, it doesn't mean they're not a minority, does it? I mean, we have 300 million people in this country as of last Tuesday. Ann Coulter is only one person. We don't even have a majority population on the Internet yet (I think), and I still believe that if we could quantify the vicious idiots, we'd find they are a very tiny percentage of the population.

Erica says she has never in her life witnessed in-person vitriol like she sees on the Internet. I say the Internet just gives those people a forum for being vitriolic and they would be anyway. Can we both be right?

And why is it so important for me to believe what I believe? To deny that the Internet is making Americans as a group be worse people than they used to be? Is it because I love the Internet so much, and what it's given me, and I don't want it to be considered "bad"? So what if it is? It doesn't change the benefit I've gotten from it, and it's certainly not going to be taken away from me. Maybe I should just admit that Erica and others are right, and join in the despair and gloominess that knowledge gives us all.

Except I can't. I can't live that way. I have to believe the better of people as a whole. I think I have a fundamental belief that the more credence we give to negativity, the more power it has over us. In my sunny, idiotic way, I'm trying to balance that by spreading posts of hope and joy.

The bad gets enough air time. I just want to give some to the good.

My Favorite Day

For a really long time, Thursday has been my favorite day of the week.

Way back in the 80s, when I was in junior high and high school, was the advent of Must See TV, starting with The Cosby Show. It was family night--we'd sit and watch TV together, eating popcorn and passing around hand towels to wipe our buttery fingers.

In college my sophmore year, I had early classes on Tuesday and Thursday, but spent many a Thursday afternoon napping in the sun with my now-husband.

Once I started working, Thursday was my favorite day in every job because it was the quietest. No matter which company I worked for, it was the day we got the fewest calls and I got the most other work done.

Now I've come full circle, and Thursday is once again TV night:

That NOSE!

As I've been watching TV this fall, I've had a very hard time with noses. I'm pretty sure there are more than these five, but these are the ones I can remember.

There seems to be an epidemic of possible nose jobs gone bad. I say "gone bad" in the sense that they have had too much stripped from the sides, creating a pinched, "ew-I-don't-want-to-smell-THAT" look. At rest, the upper lip is pulled upward, as well, creating a sneer I don't think is intentional.

These still photos don't do the phenomenon justice, but if you watch Heroes, The Nine, or Six Degrees, you can see what I mean, as the actors attempt to emote around their noses. They all appear whiny and/or fretful at all times, no matter what emotion is in their eyes.

None of these are bad actors, and they're considered some of the "beautiful people." And obviously, I don't know whether they've actually had nose jobs or not. But I betcha anything they've all got a diminished sense of smell.

Be Like Him

Saved again--I'm still having a hard time thinking of things to post about, and I was actually going to compare the low-grade anxiety of growing up in the Cold War, where fear of nuclear attack was tempered by mutually assured destruction, with today's sharper anxiety of raising kids in an era of nuclear proliferation by unpredictable, unstable dictators who have no respect for cowboy governmental leaders. The alternative was MORE discussion of TV.

But Tedy Bruschi saved you from both.

ESPN repeated a feature from this summer, where Tedy Bruschi, an NFL linebacker who returned to the field after recovering from a stroke and heart surgery, hosted a six-year-old boy who was born with a heart defect and has had three surgeries. Tedy gave the boy a tour of the stadium, a uniform, a press conference, and his game ball from a playoff win.

At the end of the feature, my husband said that shows how important it is to hold our sports stars to a higher standard, because the kids are watching. Multiple drug infractions? They should be out. Fighting and extreme carousing should be met with zero tolerance.

It's too bad more people don't feel that way. There are some class organizations in the NFL, the Patriots being near the top (not that I'm biased or anything :) ). But there are too many fans, players, management, and owners who focus only on the bottom line. Performance feeds wins feeds income, and nothing else matters. I'd like to see more of that around the league, not to mention in other sports.

The league could also use fewer boneheaded plays like tackling a quarterback when he sits on his butt on purpose. When it leads to a Patriots touchdown, however, I won't complain. Woo hoo!

Saved!

I could think about very few good things to blog about this week, and couldn't go into a weekend with an OLD POST. So luckily, cyberwuzzle set me up (well, not me specifically, but...).

Please answer these in the comments. I'd love to know all about you all!

1.Your Middle Name:

2. Age:

3. Single or Taken:

4. Favorite place to hang out:

5. Favorite pet/animal:

6. Favorite Band/Artist:

7. Tattoos and/or Piercings:

HERE COMES THE FUN ... ... ...

8. Whats your philosophy on life?

9. Tell me one odd/interesting fact about you:

10. What is the craziest thing you've ever done?

11. Ever been arrested/ gone to jail?

12. Do you think I'm attractive?

13. If you could change anything about me, would you?

14. If you could change anything about yourself, would you?

15. What do you wear to sleep?

16. What is your favorite thing to do in the world?

17. Would you go on a double date with me if i asked you?

18. If I only had one day to live, what would we do together?

19. Will you post this so I can fill it out for you?

Funny Wedding

I went to my cousin’s wedding in Cape Cod a few weeks ago. I just got access to the wedding album online and remembered the funniest part of the ceremony, of which they did get a picture, thank goodness. :)

I don’t know my cousin’s wife or her family beyond the short time I spent with them that weekend. They’re lovely people and were wonderful hosts. They own a house on the Cape, and the reception was at the Wychmere Harbor Club. The ceremony was very formal and elegant, conducted in a truly solemn manner.

There were six bridal attendants and nine groomsmen. At first, they lined up along the steps in front of the altar area (is that called a nave?). After part of the ceremony, the minister and bride and groom went up the steps and into the nave-or-whatever-it’s-called, and stood in front of the altar. One by one, the attendants formed couples by linking arms, paused, went up the steps, separated, and entered pews that ran along the opposite sides of the nave-or-whatever-it’s-called.

They ran out of couples, and the three extra groomsmen stepped forward, paused at the top of the main aisle, grabbed each other’s butts, and proceeded up the steps.

Needless to say, the congregation lost it. It was the best moment in a wedding I’ve ever seen, and I would love for someone to send it to AFV.

NaNoWriMo

For the first time ever, I get to do NaNoWriMo this year!

For those who don't know, NaNo is National Novel Writing Month. Every participant is challenged to write 50,000 words in the month of November, which is either a very short novel or a huge start to one.

I wasn't going to be able to "officially" participate because my next project was to be a book I've already started, and the rules are that it has to be a fresh project. But an old idea that I only partly liked clicked on Sunday, and I'm all set to go with it.

I'm very self-competitive, and this is a challenge I've always wanted to undergo. I can't wait!

Fall TV Conclusions

I promise I am going to TRY not to talk about TV so much anymore. But I feel a need to offer my thoughts on all the shows I decided to watch/try this year, so here it is:

Monday

Prison Break
Not as suspenseful as last year. They fake us out a lot, enough that I'm delighted and annoyed whenever they do it. The characterization is breaking down, in that the characters are far less sympathetic than they were last season, and they're starting to do dumb things (Lincoln, you idiot, it's a TRAPPPPPPP!!!!!). But the hottie factor and the acting are still enough to keep me in.

Heroes
There isn't a single character on this show that is fully sympathetic to me. They either whine too much or are ugly people (inside, not out). My favorite is the younger brother who can fly, with Mohinder a close second, followed by Greg Grunberg, who I want to hug and cry, "Weiss!" every time I see him. Verdict's still out on this one.

The Class
It makes me laugh. I was pissed to see Richie is apparently married, to Darla of Roseanne, no less. If that's the case, I may not watch anymore. Some of the funnies are getting repetitive (with the Yonk Allen storyline and the neurotic reporter). But I love the snarky twin and Jason Ritter's getting a little rumpled and more interesting.

Studio 60 on the Sunset Strip
Still my favorite new show. Wonderful writing, great acting, excellent chemistry. It amazes me how gripped I am every week, and I can't wait to watch new episodes.

Tuesday

Eureka
Never a stellar show, it was nonetheless interesting, and I liked the up-ramping they had of the main romance in the alternate-timeline finale. Except SciFi had a timing issue and the show started about five minutes late, which meant I didn't get to see the very end. Pissed me off. I'll watch next summer--it's been renewed for a second season.

Veronica Mars
Recording this pending watching the first seasons on DVD, now that I'm done with Supernatural.

Wednesday

Lost
So far, least compelling season. First episode disappointed. Second was better. I'm very eager to see the third, which looks action-packed and full of funny.

The Nine
Not as good as I'd hoped, but I haven't shut it off yet. Not much else to say about it. Feels like they're going in circles already.

30 Rock
Totally unfunny. I deleted it from my Season Passes already. I loved Tina Fey on SNL, but the writing on this show was just DUMB. Tracy is on stage riffing on nothing and being lame and cliché, and Liz and Alec Baldwin are staring at each other like he's brilliant. It's just stupid all around.

Twenty Good Years
I want Lithgow to dial it down a notch, but it made me smile a few times. That was more than 30 Rock did, so I kept it. Doubt it will last long, unless it gets funnier, but I do love both actors.

Friday

Numb3rs
This is a nice, solid show that explores relationship dynamics well, while giving us really interesting cases every week. It's not at the top of my list, but it's a comfort viewing every weekend.

Thursday
I did this out of order on purpose. I now LIVE for Thursdays.

Six Degrees
Gone! Nothing good about it. Nothing horrible, but nothing good.

Ugly Betty
Extraneous stuff is stupidly caricature, but the relationship between Daniel and Betty, and the storylines that consistently prove that the superficial hurts a lot, but the substance is a lot more powerful, make it a good show.

Smallville
This show has never been great. The bad things are worse--Lana, Clark being dour, Lana, Lex simplifying, Lana--but Chloe rocks my socks, Jimmy is an adorable addition, I like the return of the Freak of the Week element that has an overarching connection, and Clark is just always someone worth watching. I like the Green Arrow storyline. This is my fun, mindless viewing.

Supernatural
Dean and Sam. Nuff said.

Also? Great writing and incredible chemistry. Best show on TV right now, if you can handle the horror-movie-every-week element.

Plus, there's Dean and Sam. And they don't even need to take their shirts off. :)

So, what are your thoughts on the fall season?

Self-Perception

Backstory in a novel is very important. People, whether real or fictional, are completely shaped by their pasts. Still, I get annoyed when I read a book where a character (usually the heroine) wallows in events of 20 years ago, using them to affect her actions and attitude now, and never refers to anything that happened in between. I think more recent events would temper the affects of past ones, most of the time, or at least impact them.

I've had a good life. How I live it now, and who I am, have been influenced by growing up poor, with parents who divorced when I was seven, and a mother who was ill much of her life in ways that were barely identified, never mind treated properly. None of that is part of my day-to-day living, though. I don't think about it much, and certainly don't blame most of my choices on my past. But there is one overriding theme of my childhood that has a huge influence on me, and not in a good way.

I had a dream last night. I have this friend, and we're so alike in so many ways that the differences hardly matter. We could be together non-stop for a week and not run out of things to talk about. In my dream, we were at a very elegant conference where she was a Big Deal--featured speaker, presenter of two workshops, hanging out with people who are far cooler than I am--and I wasn't a part of it. It was like I wasn't even there.

(Then the dream morphed and I was trying to get my second suitcase that held all my nice clothes, that I'd left on the baggage carousel, and the airline people were giving me a hard time because it was my own fault. But that's irrelevant.)

I woke up and imagined telling this friend about this dream. She'd be irritated. She's always irritated when I tell her I feel inferior. So I started thinking about why I feel that way. It's certainly not because of her.

I went to three different elementary schools, so I didn't have a lot of friends. I've always been introverted and shy, so it was hard to make new ones. In middle school I had a few, but in the last semester my lunch was different from theirs, so I sat with some other kids in my classes. Eventually, they asked me to sit somewhere else because I didn't talk.

In junior high there was a group of girls that bullied me. I had a new boyfriend who was pretty geeky, and they were picking on me about it. I don't remember the exact taunt it was in response to, but I yelled "Because he's nice!" back through a set of doors. One girl came charging up behind me and shoved me in the back. I went flying and skidded on my stomach across the carpet.

The two years I spent in that high school developed okay. I shared most of my classes with a particular group of kids, and in our junior year they were friendlier toward me. I got invited to my first party. Then, out of the blue, they told me I couldn't hang out with them anymore. My mother said the girls were probably jealous because I was getting attention from the boys (I always had more friends who were boys than friends who were girls). But they never told me why they didn't like me anymore. I was left to feel that I just wasn't worthy.

So I have an accumulation of things that contribute to how I felt in that dream. Things since have tempered it--I moved again before my senior year and went to a great school with kids who liked me, I made plenty of friends in college, I now have a fabulous group of friends through my writing associations, and for the most part, I don't let what happened in the past bother me.

But every so often comes this inferiority complex when I start wondering what the hell someone would see in me. Why I'm worthy of friendship with this amazing, funny, self-assured, adored person who could be friends with anyone. No one would understand why I'd feel this way unless they knew my backstory.

So I think the bottom line is flavor. A story has to be flavored with backstory rather than chunked with it, and even if there is one overriding event or series of events that dictate a character's personality and viewpoint, there have to be other things that either feed or alter it. If there weren't, it should be clear why.

Something I need to keep in mind as I revise my current book. :)

Invalid Statistics

I get really annoyed when people make a point using invalid statistics.

For example, I used to get this newsletter from a psychologist author about taming your inner brat. She cited a survey where 80% of motorists said they'd witnessed road rage, but only 20% admitted to committing it. She said the math doesn't compute, and either implied or stated outright that people must be committing road rage without admitting it. She was very gracious when I pointed out that the 80% could have been seeing the same 20%. I mean, when someone flips someone else off on the highway, three or four people could witness it, right?

Well, here we go again. Po Bronson had a really good column at the back of Time magazine last week. It was about how the media blows certain things all out of proportion, leading us to believe that all of our kids are spoiled brats who are overscheduled and on panic attack medication about college selection and go back to loaf and live with their parents after college (I'm paraphrasing, of course). [The funny thing is that every example he cited was from past Time articles.] His point was that there are actually very few parents who do too much for their kids, and the media is highlighting a problem in a small portion of the population but applying it to the nation at large.

The problem was, he made his point by saying Baby Einstein only made $200 million last year, while Barbie made $3 billion. This was meant to illustrate that parents are letting their kids play, instead of trying to instruct them into insanity. This false illustration ignores the facts:

• Baby Einstein targets a range of ages 0 to 2, maybe up to 3 or 4
• Barbie's target demographic is three to six times that age range, not to mention adult collectors

• Baby Einstein sells toys, books, DVDs, etc., and that's pretty much it
• Barbie's name is all over clothes, lunchboxes, bicycles, thousands of products

Extrapolating from statistics in this manner undermines a person's point and makes all their assertions suspect. It drives me nuts.

And I never even took a probability and statistics course.

P-p-p-p-p-procrastination

I had an idea of what to write here today, and then I was reading the posts on my LJ flist, and it totally disappeared.

So now I'm just procrastinating.

I have a galley to read, and that's, like, my least favorite task as an author. No, it's my least favorite task as a WRITER. Booksignings are my least favorite task. Standing at a table in the mall, begging people to come look at my book, trying to appear friendly and engaging (which I'm not) instead of desperate (which I am)...yeah, not so fun.

Anyway. Galleys. This is a novella, so it's not too long, only 83 pages, but it's a story I wrote, edited twice, proofread, and went through editorial revisions. I don't want to read it again! I tell myself it's okay not to bother, because between my attention and my editor's great eye, there is almost nothing to fix in galley stage. But then I do it anyway, because I must and I'm a good girl who does what she's supposed to, and there's always SOMETHING. Usually five or fewer, but enough to make it worth the time. And honestly, even if it's just one thing, it's worth the time.

So, I guess that's enough procrastination. I am off to do my galley.

Oh, and check out the status bar on the right! I actually finished on October 2 and kept forgetting to update my status bar.

Getting Myself in Trouble

I'm trying to write a letter to Fred Head. This is my first draft:

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
Dear Mr. Head,

Because I am a published romance author, your parody regarding Susan Combs' book came to my attention. I would like to point out some things to you:

Click to read the extraxts from the Book

The word "extracts" is misspelled, and the correct term is "excerpts." This line should be fixed lest you are seen as less literate than your published author opponent.

Susan Combs is a two faced, hypocrite who was obviously more concerned with her literary career and seeing her name in print than the morals of the young People of Texas

Two-faced hypocrite is redundant, but it is also overkill, since that describes many politicians. More importantly, the novel she wrote was written about and for adults, and marketed to adults. Young people have nothing to do with it.

A Perfect Match, which has her name at the top of every other page - - - a clear testament to Susan Combs’ insatiable ego and desire to see her name in print.

This is what made me certain this page is a parody. EVERY fiction book published has the author's name on the top of every other page. Also, succeeding in one's chosen career is an honorable thing. Shall we call you an insatiable egoist because your name is plastered all over the state?

Excerpts of Susan Combs’ book A Perfect Match are posted on this website and can be accessed by anyone who wants to know the awful truth about Susan Combs.

Aren't you afraid your supporters will be appalled that you are peddling pornography on your web site, which, as far as I can tell, has no controls that would prevent children from reading those excerpts?

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
I was going to send a more professional, less sarcastic take, but then I read some more of his web site. He's obviously a fan of fantasy novels, because Every other Word on his Web Site is capitalized inappropriately. The whole site is poorly written, badly edited, and stark compared to Susan Combs' professional, well-written, detailed site.

I have to acknowledge that it's POSSIBLE he'd be a better comptroller than Combs, and since I don't live in Texas I didn't do more than read their web sites, which really seem to extoll the same values and goals. But if I lived there, I definitely wouldn't vote for him.

New Hope

I have a book that I wrote about five years ago. You hear all the time about the "book of your heart"--this was it for me. It was my first single title, my first paranormal, my first action-adventure. It was the first book I wrote that was easy. I was so exhilarated to write it, and I never had a "God I hate this book" moment like I did with all the ones that came before it. The sequel was just as much a joy, and so was the third one. At least, up until the moment I stopped writing it.

I shopped that first book everywhere. I got an agent, and she shopped it everywhere. I entered it in the Golden Heart three times. I revised the opening chapters, because the gap of time between writing the first sixteen pages and writing the rest caused a voice/tone change. I revised again, adding a prologue because the beginning had so much exposition, I thought it needed more action. My scores in the GH and other contests dropped every time I revised, though, and I won a critique from a top agent, who said "what if you did it this way?" and she basically described exactly what the original opening had been.

So I've revised it again.

So where's the hope? If every publisher has rejected it twice, what can I possibly do with it?

A few years ago, a new imprint and a new line were starting at Harlequin/Silhouette. The news was barely above the level of rumor, so we had no idea exactly what the editors were looking for. I called one of them, and she said to send it. She read it over the Thanksgiving weekend, called my agent, and said it wasn't right for the line but she'd pass it along to that other new imprint. That editor also said it wasn't right for the imprint, but she wanted to hold it for something she couldn't talk about, if that was okay.

That was the high point of my career so far. I've been heading into a big trough since, but you know how life can be so cyclical? That thing the editor couldn't talk about never came to pass, but her imprint is changing focus in such a way that my book MIGHT be right for it now. I sent a partial last week, so we'll see what happens.

I don't know why I'm doing this, because even if she loves the book, I have a feeling the sequels wouldn't fit. Too much romance. So I'd be back to square one with those, and I want them published as much as I want the first one.

I'm going to give the Golden Heart one last try, too, I think. The book deserves it. Everyone, cross your fingers for me!

Irrelevant Modifiers and Security Fears

Despite the fact that it happened about half an hour away from me, I've read and watched little on the news about the latest school shooting. What I *have* seen, however, seems to be putting ridiculous emphasis on an irrelevant aspect of the shooting.

"Amish School Tragedy"

"Amish School Shooting Funds"

"Fifth Victim of Amish School Massacre to be buried today"

"Amish bury their dead"

One news story says, "Charles Roberts IV didn’t choose West Nickel Mines Amish School because it was Amish."

I don't get the part where "Amish" is the most important element of the horror. When Columbine happened, everyone referred to it as Columbine. Why are we not calling it "West Nickel Mines school tragedy"?

Does the fact that they're Amish make the tragedy worse? As if murdered seven-year-olds isn't bad enough. I'm sure the media is playing up that angle because the Amish are believed to be pure, devout, simple folk, and somehow that does increase the horror.

Perhaps, though, they are emphasizing that element for other reasons. Because an Amish school is different, you know. They probably don't have the tight security an English school would have (English being the Amish descriptor for the rest of us). Right? It's less likely to happen in my kids' school, right? Reassure me with that one word.

The fact is, though, there is no reassurance to be had. This guy had no apparent connection to the school (from what I can tell from the one story I read), unlike Columbine or other school shootings. My kids' schools have "procedures" and anyone who comes in is supposed to go straight to the office. The problem with that is that the elementary school where my second grader goes was built 40 years ago, and the office is not near the front doors. Which they don't lock. She's about to move back into her regular school, which was undergoing renovation, and that office has a door into the entryway, and the inside doors into the building usually ARE locked. So that's better. Except in the office is one sweet secretary who would be no obstacle to a gun-toting madman, who could get inside the building itself in seconds. The situation in my sixth-grader's school isn't much different.

So what am I gonna do about it?

First, if I have occasion to talk about the West Nickel Mines school shooting, that's what I'm going to call it.

Second, I'm gonna do nothing. If someone is crazy enough to do something like this, there is little chance to stop them. There's no way to predict or prevent it. Even if we added security guards and alarms and vault-style doors to our tiny schools, they would not deter a determined person. More importantly, death is just around the corner for all of us, all the time, no matter where we are or what we're doing. Branches fall off of trees. E. Coli gets into spinach. Lightning strikes. School buses crash (and my GOD, that's a helluva lot scarier--I Googled bus crash 'cause I knew one had happened recently, and there have been NINE or more in the last week). We take normal precautions, and some a little beyond normal, and then we have to forget about the rest, or go insane.

And not the good kind of insanity that comes from being a writer or drooling over hot guys on TV all week.

I Lost the Nine

Well, I didn't really, but I wanted to combine the two titles and that's the lame one I came up with. :)

This week ends the season premieres of the shows I wanted to watch this season. Last night were Lost and The Nine, and I have to say, I'm not at all disappointed.

Lost had a quieter start than usual, with a low suspense level but LOTS happening. It appears this first six episodes before the way-too-long break will focus on the immediate aftermath of the abduction, but next week will include Sayid/Jin/Sun and not those from the hatch or beach. Which, of course, are who we are most dying to learn about.

The Nine lived up to my expectations. I'm really unhappy that Eva died, and I'm not thrilled with a couple of the relationships they're building (adulterous boyfriend with pregnant girlfriend--cliche, cliche, cliche) and I don't like Nick (the cop) with Catherine (the lawyer). But I'm dying to learn what happened in the bank. The best part of the whole episode, I think, was the skill with which they jumped us from the start to the end of the situation. All these strangers, with superficial interactions--and then, suddenly, they're completely bonded. They know each other intimately. There are extremely intense emotions that we only get hints of--just as we would if we were on the outside of that bank for 52 hours. That was well done. Remains to be seen if the long-term aftermath will be as compelling, but the flashbacks will be enough to keep me coming back.

Two Guys

Has anyone else noticed that so many current TV shows feature two hot guys?

I mean, "hot" is subjective, of course. And sometimes it's not "hot" in the physical sense, but more "appealing" or "attractive." But just take a look:

Clark and Lex, inspiring feverish slash fiction all over the Internet.





Jack and Sawyer. Or Sayid and Jin. Or Charlie and Locke. Or Desmond and Eko. Or any combination of the above, with more to come this Wednesday. This is the show for every woman!




I already talked about Supernatural. We've got the cocky, protective, no-fear sexy older brother, and the confident, reluctant-turned-driven, don't-call-me-little-brother. Both are smart and funny and cute.




These two are more in the "appealing" category, but they have excellent chemistry together, which I think is a driving factor in any TV show's success. Their friendship is so complex, yet so solid, it makes me want to be their friend.



Dichotomy--the absentminded genius professor who feels too much, and the take-charge FBI agent who won't let himself feel at all, which makes it worse.


What other shows contain two hot guys?

Edited to add:
Trish reminded me in the comments that I'd neglected to upload this pic and mention these guys--probably the hottest brother team on TV (at the least, tied with Dean and Sam):

The Most Appealing Comparisons

I was able to pick five celebrities who "match" my face. I picked the most gorgeous...I mean, most famous ones. There were several who were ugly...I mean, who I'd never heard of.