Following the Characters' Lead

I've been trying to write a love scene for about a week now. (At least.) I know that a love scene is the next thing that happens. I know that it will happen eventually. But my characters are being amazingly difficult about the whole thing. It's kind of like trying to lead a critter that doesn't want to be led. Which has me thinking about my process, and wondering whether non-writer people would understand. (Probably not.)

See, I'm not one of those writers who sits down and just starts writing, flying by the seat of my pants into the mist to see where the story takes me.

Conversely, I'm not one of those writers who plans out the story scene by scene, chapter by chapter. I don't know where my chapter breaks will fall until the second draft, at least.

I'm something of a hybrid between the two. I have to have some structure--a plot skeleton to hang the story's flesh on, and often, a list of scenes I think I want to write. (Though that list is often not developed until I reach the roadmap's turning points, to mix my metaphors.) But I can't have too much.

Basically, what happens when I write: I have my roadmap, or skeleton, or beat sheet--whatever term you want to use. I have turning points and Major Scenes written down. I might also have a list of things that need to happen after This turning point, in order to reach That turning point. Beyond that, I really don't know much.

I line my characters up--put them on their marks, to use acting jargon. She is here, doing this, wearing these clothes (or not, as the case may be). He is over there, doing this other thing. There are people outside, or in the room around them, or maybe the characters are alone. Then I tell them--this is the situation, this is what has just happened, and this is what is going to happen in this scene.

The one I'm trying to write is a love scene, but it could be anything. I could tell them: "This is the scene where He tells Her about his dead child," or "In this scene, She gets His shirt off to look at an injury and is mortified by her attraction to him." Or whatever the scene might be. I tell them what the scene is, and then I say, "Okay, Ready? Go!"

And I write down what they do. (It's kind of like improv, that way.) I write down what they think and what they feel, how they react to what the other person says. And quite often, they surprise me.

This particular love scene comes fairly late in this book. I know my characters well by this time. I know how they'll react to things. Which is where the stubborn comes in. I know good and well these two people are going to do it. But I am having the dickens of a time getting them to the point, because of who they are. I can't say it's because of who I've made them, because I'm not sure I can claim that. I tend to get acquainted with my characters more than I invent them. My hero is a good guy and he's damn proud of that. He's a little rigid on the point, which is what will make his fracture so delicious. And my heroine is crazy. But she's not as crazy as she'd like to be. I'm hoping that tomorrow I may be able to move beyond the talk into some action. I hope. (Please, people!)

I know already that I'm going to have to go back and thin out some of the repetition, and probably shorten it, because it feels long. (Though it may not be as long as it feels, because I haven't written that many pages over the week of trying to get them started.) But I had to write all that to know what actually happens. To turn my characters loose and let them lead. Because for me, that's when I know the story is going to be what I want it to be. If the characters have taken over, that's when it's working.

So while I'm frustrated that they're taking their own sweet time about this, I'm also content to let them do it the way they want.

And how are things going for You?

TBR Challenge: I Capture The Castle

Well darn. I didn't make the Blog Post Day for the TBR challenge--but I have done it! The Official day for the TBR blog post was March 17, but I hadn't finished reading the book by then. Sigh. So I'm posting my mini-review today.

This month was supposed to be Historical Fiction/Romance/Mystery. I read a YA book set in the 1930s, so it was technically historical, but I'm going to count this as June's YA book, and read a historical (or something else) then. I am going ALL out of order on this thing.

So. I read I CAPTURE THE CASTLE by Dodie Smith.

I think I'm just not in the target market for this book. I liked it okay, but it wasn't "the bestest thing ever." Probably because I'm so much older than the age group it's really written for. I appreciated the message that "You shouldn't settle for less than what you really want." But I've known a lot of 17/18-year-olds who were/are a lot more mature than this girl. Maybe it's the difference in era, too. Kids today are a lot more sophisticated, in a lot of ways.

The story is about a self-aware 17-year-old who lives in a rundown castle in rural England with her family-older sister, younger brother, stepmother and father who was a "one-book wonder," making lots of money with a highly acclaimed experimental novel, and hasn't written anything since. They're desperately poor, and the sister hates it. The heroine, who tells us the story in her journal, isn't wild about being hungry or having ratty outgrown clothes, but she's not so desperate. She wants to be a writer, wants to "experience life." Oh, there's also another boy--very handsome, but "lower class" (his mother was their housekeeper, till she died)--who lives with the family and works for them. He gets room & board, but doesn't get actual wages, and he's got a crush on the heroine.

I spent a lot of time wanting to smack the heroine upside the head and say "grow up!" She talks about how it's immature to kiss someone and think one's in love--but she does it anyway. And I never did understand why she was so snobbish to the "servant" boy - I could see how she might not "love" love him--he was essentially like another brother--but it wasn't explained like that. Maybe the narrator wasn't conscious of it--but she was conscious of so much else. That may have been part of the reason for my impatience with her. She was so self-aware about so much--and so dim about so much else.

But then the adults in the book needed smacking even more than the heroine, so... I have even less patience with people who "wait for the muse" when they want to create. The muse shows up when you give it a place to appear. You create the opportunity, by sitting down and starting the work, and the muse has space to work.

In the end, I'm not sure what the point of the whole story was. It felt very much like a slice of life story without a real ending to the story arc. Either that, or I missed what the arc actually was. And yes, there was the "Don't settle," theme, but... I guess the end left me feeling as if the story just fizzled out.

I did like the book, but it wasn't anything to swoon over, IMO.

I had all sorts of inspiring ideas for a blog--but didn't write them down, and when I get to the "New Post" page on the computer, I have forgotten them all. Alas.

I have written pages this week, despite having doctor appointments and such. Need to go get mail from the post office today. Should have a new Netflix movie in.

I will try in future to write down blog ideas so I will not forget what they are. :)

Oh! The middle grandson is learning to ride a bike! He does pretty good, except--when he sees a car coming their way, 2 blocks away, he yelps, jumps off the bike and hides behind the nearest tree. (He's autistic. He's doing good, considering.)

Y'all have a good weekend.

More House Hunting

We are still waiting to hear from the loan company. We want to know if we can do this the way we want to before we really start getting seriously serious in the house hunting. So we're just going to open houses and such. This past weekend, there weren't many houses open--not houses we wanted to look at anyway. One was on the street where we rented for 6 weeks when we first moved to the island--where Ike flooded everything about 12 feet or more--and it floods often, even without major hurricanes. Nope, not going to move over there...

Anyway, this house was also in the historic district, which looks VERY different with all the trees gone (Hurricane Ike killed them). When we drove up, the fella was already going "Nope, nope, don't like it, don't even want to go in."

It looks pretty good in the picture, doesn't it. But that paint job is starting to peel on the sides, and the roof's bad, and those balusters on the porch? They're the style that bulges out. (You can kind of see it on the non-stair side.) I think it looks seriously funny. Plus the porch sags to the front.

Inside, it looks a lot better than outside. They've done a lot of nice things--first floor master bedroom, new kitchen cabinets, etc. But the dining room is also the walkway through to the kitchen, there's no den, and it's a little pricey for what still needs doing. There's a huge garage with a garage apartment out back--3 cars' worth (one for the apartment)--but it hasn't been touched since the storm. There's still Ike water in the outside light fixtures.

It's one of those deals where--if you offer the full price, you'll get a new roof and the apartment redone and all, but if you don't--well, there's the house--You fix it. Like I said, the interior re-do looks very nice, but the floors slope, and the doors stick, and the outside doesn't look so great. So I don't think we're going to go with this slant-roofed Victorian. (Even though it is just a few blocks away from The Original Mexican Cafe.)

In other news... there isn't much. I had a blister, or swollen vein or something in my mouth that made my teeth hurt for a week. It finally burst and feels much better--I can eat now--but it has turned into one of those mouth ulcers. Ugh. Still, when it was really hurting, I couldn't sleep and sat up in the recliner dozing to the Weather Channel all night. So I'm really glad it's over, mostly.

If I'm going to get anything written today, it will have to be tonight. Spent the morning getting the oil, the power steering fluid, the gas filter and some other kind of fluid that goes to the universal joints changed, and some other thing cleaned out on my massive beast of a vehicle. Now I am at the paper, getting stuff done here. Back to work.

A few more thoughts about contests for writers

Back in December, I wrote a blog about contests. (You will have to scroll down to the Dec. 9 entry, because apparently, Blogger won't let me link to individual posts in my archive.) In this blogpost, I talked about whether entering or winning contests could get you published. (Nope- but it can do other things.) Now, I feel the need to talk about other elements of these contests for unpublished writers.

See, RWA has a ton of 'em. Seems like every chapter of the organization has a contest. I may be exaggerating, but not by a hell of a lot. There are other contests out there, run by other local writers' organizations, which tend to have different rules, but I'm most familiar with the RWA contests, because over the years I've entered, and judged, a lot of them. Usually, these contests have three judges, who are given a scoresheet with numeric scores, which can add up to over 100 points. (There are often posts on various loops begging for additional judges, because of this multiple-judge rule.) The scoresheets have places (usually too small) for comments, and judges are usually encouraged to write on the manuscript. (I tend to write a lot, because I'm wordy.)

And invariably, when entrants receive their scoresheets and manuscripts back (whether electronic or hard copy), the score analysis--and often the moaning--begins. Contest entrants want to learn from these contests. They want to understand the scores. And often, when they receive a 90, a 97 and a 51 as their scores, they are confused.

The thing is--writing contests are judged by human beings and no two human beings think the same way. In fact, often, the same human being will think differently on two different occasions. Also, numeric scores are tough to calibrate, especially when relating them to things that aren't numbers. One person's 5 might be someone else's 3, and vice versa.

Most people agree that if only one person dings you for a particular flaw, you may not actually have that problem in your writing. However, if two or more people comment on it--you'd probably better take a closer look.

And here's another thing to think about. This is just My opinion, of course, but I'd rather have a story that people either loved or hated than a story they felt lukewarm about. This is another reason some contest entries can have a wide spread in the scores. If it's different, some people will love it, and some won't, and they can be vehement about that love or hate.

So--contest scoresheets and comments should be taken carefully, with a fair bit of salt, and even more time to get them down. This is when it becomes gut-check time. 'Cause really--you know in your gut if the comments are right. Really. You do. Those are usually the ones that cause the biggest denial, the biggest defensiveness. If the comments are way off and don't suit your story at all, those comments you can laugh at. It's actually possible to laugh. The ones that are true--those are the ones that pinch. They hurt, because you know they're right.

So are you going to get all defensive and post an ugly rant about how the judges don't know what they're doing, etc., etc.? Or are you going to cowboy up and do the work?

Yeah, I know sometimes it feels like the judge is taking your story apart and making it into something that's not really yours. But is she/he really? Is it a fundamental change in what your story is about--or is she just trying to get you to cut off the fish head?

("Fish head" is a term from Britta Coleman, author of Potter Springs. Just as, when you cooking a whole fish for your guests you need to cut off the head and set it aside (because those grandkids won't eat anything that looks at them) you need to cut the fish head off your story in order to serve it properly. The fish needed it to get around before it made it to your kitchen. The story probably needed it to get written--but you don't need it now. Cut that sucker off. It's done. Start the story on the day that's different.)

And stop obsessing about scoresheets. Think of it as practice for submitting your manuscript to an agent or editor. They're people too. Some of them will like your story, and some of them won't. If you're very lucky, some of them will make comments about things you could do to improve it. Most of them will just send a polite "No thanks." That's when you pull up your big girl panties and deal.

Don't get mad. Get even. Write a better book and sell that one.

House Hunters a la Galveston Island

We are finally doing some serious looking for a house. This may all change if we don't get the answer we expect from the mortgage company, but we have started the process and have been to some open houses and gone driving through neighborhoods, as well as doing a lot of cruising on line. Some houses look better in person than they do on line. Some look worse, especially after you drive by the neighbor's houses.

Anyway, because I get a kick out of watching House Hunters on HGTV, I'm going to do my own little version of House Hunters here on my blog. We will have more than 3 houses to pick from here, because I have infinite (sort of) space to post stuff. I probably won't post Every house we look at, just the ones that are possible.

So, that said, we went to some open houses on Sunday. One of them moved directly from our "possible" list to our "no" list--the house had been damaged in Hurricane Ike (all the ones we looked at on Sunday took on water during the hurricane--75% of the houses on the island flooded) and hadn't been put back together well. The other two--one of them moved from the "probably not" list to the "might work" list, and the other from not even on the list to the "liked it-but there are issues" list.

So, the house we liked is a historic home across the street from the medical school on the island. The current owner works there. We do not, but it's a quick hop to Harborside which is a mostly straight shot to the newspaper, and a pretty quick jaunt to the fella's work.

It's a pretty house, with essentially no yard whatsoever. There is a small flower-bed-type area in front of the house. The back of the house is a patio. No room for trees--except maybe a palm tree, and given that they mostly survived the hurricane and the freeze this winter, that might not be a bad idea. There is also a small deck on back of the house. It is much larger inside than it looks from the outside. And those 14 foot ceilings (or maybe higher--they are Very High) make the rooms look even larger.

It did take on about two feet of water in the hurricane (Everything in Galveston is divided into "before Ike" and "after Ike"), but the remediation job is gorgeous. The original wood floors were completely refinished, the walls redone--the job was done Right. (And 2 feet of water is nothing, considering downtown businesses mostly got 8 to 10 feet of water, and houses near us took on 4 feet.)

The rooms are large--except for a tiny little den-type room they have set up with a TV. I think it's too little for our den furniture. There's a sunporch-type room that might fit our stuff and be usable as a den, and I would take the den room (with the laundry room right off it) for my office, but the fella makes a face when I say that.

The bedrooms upstairs are huge. There are two full baths upstairs, and there are actually closets (which can be an issue in an older home-this one dates to 1897 or so, which means it survived the massive 1900 storm too). And there is a garage. Two cars with storage. Those are the pros.

The cons--those 14-foot ceilings mean the staircase is Very Long and kinda steep. (This is the view from the top of the stairs, looking toward the front door.) I have bad knees. The idea of carrying a laundry basket down those stairs gives me the heeby-jeebies. And the den/study issue is problematic.

Also, the exterior is wood siding. This is an island on the Gulf of Mexico. The weather is Hard on paint. Things that would require re-painting inland in 10 years tend to need painting in 5 years here. And the fella isn't wild about that idea--having to paint frequently. You saw in the picture just how much there is to paint on the outside of this house. (Even those 30-year paints only last about half as long in this climate.)

The missing yard is an issue too, given that part of the reason I want my own house is that I want my own dog. A small dog would be all right, but the fella isn't wild about small dogs. (He scowls at the idea of a dog at all...)

So--this is on the "liked it" list. It has all the requirements. The location is decent, though it's not in a neighborhood, per se, being across the street from the hospital. It has a separate den/TV room, or a room that could be used that way. It has a garage. I could see myself living here (except for that laundry-basket-on-the-stairs issue).

The other house that's on the "might do" list was on the other end of the city. We did drive out past the end of the seawall to look at houses in the closest bayside subdivision, but--besides not caring for the houses--the fella decided it would take too long to get to work in the mornings. So we're pretty much looking in the city, behind the seawall.

This second house was much newer (by about 100 years). It took on several feet of water--somewhere between 2 and 4 feet. The repair was done well in some places, and not so well in others.

It has a small parlor-type room right inside the front door, then opens out into a good-sized dining room with a den/living area beyond. The kitchen's off to the right with a breakfast area, and a little courtyard right outside that is in pretty good shape. The tree is still deciding whether it's going to live or not, but it's a pretty area. There's a good-sized covered deck off the den (needs paint) and a smallish yard--but it is a yard. And the master bedroom is downstairs. The re-do of the master bath is very nice. Slate floor, slate around the bathtub, separate shower, double sinks.

The not-so-good stuff--the kitchen re-do is not very good. You can't see it in this picture, but the counter tops are pretty. Red-and-gray granite. I like the counter tops. But there's not much counter space, that central hood thing is weird, and the oven and microwave are almost too tiny to cook in. And--see how the counter top on the island extends beyond the cabinet? There's a gap like that next to the refrigerator. About a foot more counter top than there is cabinet. It looks weird. We would probably have to redo the kitchen again. The house is priced so we could do that, but it would be a pain.

Also, the stairs--they are not so good. I can't get my whole foot on a stair tread. The stairs used to be open at the back--suspended--and now they aren't. So they're too short. Admittedly, I have big feet for a girl, but that means that almost no adult male alive can get his feet on the treads. There are two bedrooms upstairs, one of which would have to be my office. It would be a good thing to be able to fit my feet on the stairs. But at least there's only about 10 feet worth of stairs, not 14 or more. And once the boy graduates (in May, we hope) there wouldn't be laundry upstairs that needed bringing down.

This one is an "okay, but not wonderful" house.

We're still waiting to see what the bank says, so we haven't called any agents yet to get in to see some of these other houses we've found online. We'll do more open houses this coming weekend. Maybe we'll find some more houses to go on the "liked it" or "might do" lists.

Songs, Poetry and Lovely Words

Once upon a time, I was at a conference, and the faculty member/poetry judge (who was an English Lit prof) said something to the effect of "It doesn't necessarily have to make sense, as long as the language is beautiful."

To which I recoiled, aghast. (Which is a fun word, in itself. Aghast. It's even spelled in a fun way.)

As said last week, or the week before, I'm all about the story. If the art doesn't serve the story, it should be excised. However, I'm a novelist. I'm not even very good at short stories, much less short-shorts, and flash fiction? Fuggeddaboudit. (Or however that's spelt.)

When I was in high school, my English teacher gave an assignment to rewrite Beowulf as a Western. I wrote 13 pages (front-and-back, college-ruled paper--and I write pretty small), and wasn't through. I have never been a short-storyteller. But, I think there IS a place for pretty language that doesn't necessarily serve the story. Poetry.

I don't read a lot of poetry. It's not really "my thing," and--as in many other areas, I have what's considered rather plebeian taste in poetry. I like rhythmic, rhyming stuff. Things that are almost songs, just in the words. And I like poetry a lot as song lyrics. There's some pretty bad poetry in lyrics, but there's some good stuff out there too.

Thing is--and I don't think this is a contradiction--I don't like song-stories, otherwise known as ballads, very much. I like the older ballads well enough--things like The Highwayman or The Ballad of New Orleans--but things like "Lucille" or "A Boy Named Sue"? Not so much. Because once I've heard the story, I've heard it. I don't want to hear it a bazillion times more, even if it is set to music. I know how it comes out. (When combined with my antagonism toward monotonous boring music, this makes "Ode to Billy Joe"--the old 60s song about how "Billy Joe McAlister jumped off of Tallahatchee Bridge"--into my most despised song Ever.)

I'm sure y'all can name any number of exceptions, but I really prefer songs that--like poetry--create an emotion. A moment in time. A bit of "this is how I feel at this moment." Poetry is, to me, more like painting and music. Ephemeral stuff that bypasses the logical left brain and does a whammy on the emotive right brain--except poetry uses words and so has to bring the left brain in on it. Even poems like "My Last Duchess," by Robert Browning (which is a favorite) is about a moment. It tells a story, but it's still a moment in time, a kick of emotion.

So--poetic words can have their place in a novel, by creating moments of emotion. But in a novel, they have to serve the story.

I'm not sure I've made any sense at all here. I know I've wandered all over the place and probably haven't conveyed what I was attempting to say--but I tried.

Oh, and it looks like I may be going back to a more regular PT job. The girl who took over during my "leave of absence" is departing at the end of next week, and I'll be back at the newspaper on a more regular basis. Not sure how I feel about that, but... We'll get by.

My new pretty thing

I was going to blog about poetry and words and art and stuff, but I'm not feeling very poetic. Or wordy, or art-y, though I might be feeling somewhat stuffy. Anyway, I decided not to blog about that, but instead, to see if I could show you my spiffy new sorta-toy.

It's not really a toy. It's a beautimous cover for my toy. You can see the Sony e-book reader inside the open cover here.

See, I broke the cover the reader came with. I dropped it, and the plastic spine up the back cracked. I read it for several more days before the end cracked all the way through, but eventually, it broke in two pieces, and would no longer hold the book reader.

I still kept it in the original reader, for protection, when I wasn't actually reading, but I took it out to read. Still, it would slip out when I put it in my bag, and slide around and annoy me. And I found this Place. Oberon Design had a PR post card at ApolloCon last year. They may have had jewelry and leather also, but I don't remember. I went to the website to look at jewelry--which is very cool--and saw the Very Neat leather goods. With e-Reader Covers! They have them for Kindles too, but I don't have one of those, do I?

Now I will let you look at the awesome design on the front. It is a Chinese river garden. They have many, many awesome designs, and I was sorely tempted by the dragon, and the raven, and the starry sky. But I wound up getting this one, because it was the one that kept drawing my eye first off. (The design continues onto the back.) And it's red. Each design only comes in a couple of colors. I like red, though I didn't get the red Sony reader.

Anyway, I think the cover is very spiffy. I like it whole bunches and have to show it off to everybody. And sooner or later, I will get around to writing about poetry and songs and art and words and stuff. When I'm feeling more arty. :)

TBR Challenge: Silent on the Moor

I think the post date was Monday, and Monday I was at the parents going to the doctor with Daddy & gathering up all the tax stuff. (Ooooh, there's a big lightning/thunder thing outside!)

So, I'm doing this one on Friday.

Silent on the Moor is the third book by Deanna Raybourn about Lady Julia Grey and the half-gypsy detective Brisbane. She goes to Yorkshire to stay at Brisbane's house and "have it out" with him about their relationship--and winds up dropping into the midst of a bizarre family situation. Between the mummified infants she finds in the walls and the near-poisoning of one of the residents, Lady Julia has quite an adventure. The problem for me was that she mostly had it alone. While Brisbane is the love of her life, they spent far too much time apart for my preference, and what time they did spend together, she was usually spitting mad at him. Which made the happy ending a bit abrupt and awkward-feeling to me. I didn't get quite why she was so keen on him.

But I still liked it. So... That's the book report.

Art must serve Story

Several years ago--so long I don't remember where it was, much less when--Jennifer Crusie spoke to RWA's national conference as keynote, or one of the big speakers, she said "We need more storytellers and fewer writers."

The whole ballroom full of published and aspiring writers burst into applause.

Genre writers understand that it's about the story. Yes, language and craft is important, but without a story to tell, you might as well be writing poetry.

Not that there's anything wrong with poetry. I like poetry just fine, but I have to admit that my favorite place to find poetry is in song lyrics. I don't read a lot of it, and I don't write it, because--well, I'm all about the story.

A novel is a story--or it had better be. Otherwise, nobody much is going to want to read it. All the art must be in service to that--to the telling of the story. You can be just as pretty or writerly as you want, but if the pretty words don't serve the story, you have to chuck them out.

Because There Are Only Two Rules in Fiction That You CANNOT Break. They are:

1. Do Not BORE Your Reader.

and

2. Do Not CONFUSE Your Reader.

An interesting Plot with interesting Characters takes care of Rule #1 (for the most part). Decent grammar and clarity of language helps with Rule #2. And sometimes, pretty words get in the way of Rule #2.

Every other rule out there that people tell you about--feel free to break them, once you know how and why they work. These two? If you break 'em, you won't sell your book, because your first readers--your prospective agent or editor--will get bored and/or confused and they won't buy or help you sell your book.

Art is great. I got nothin' against art in any shape, form or fashion. (I know, resorting to cliches. Deal with it. It's a blog.) But in fiction, storytelling comes first. Art must serve the function--which is story.

Quick referral post

I blogged over at Paranormality about Steampunk and the blood magic universe books. So while I'm off checking on the parents & accompanying them to more doctor appointments, y'all can go read what I wrote over there. :)

Picture post

Ha! finally got the pictures downloaded off the camera. (The fella STILL hasn't downloaded the San Francisco pics onto his computer, and that was back in October! Grr.) So, y'all are getting the whole shebang.

First, here is the princess wussy granddog with her tug-o-war rope. That spot on her nose is the bobo she got when she scraped a nickel-sized hunk of skin off her nose on the fence while jumping at a possum. It's almost well now, but it made an icky scab.

I have posted about Mardi Gras, and here are some of our Mardi Gras pictures. This first one is of The Strand--Galveston's main downtown street--just before the Knights of Momus parade on the second Saturday of Mardi Gras. The fella took all the pictures of the Aquarius parade on the first Saturday, and I don't know any of the people in it, so I'm skipping to these pictures.

The son's girlfriend came down for the weekend, which was Valentine's as well as Mardi Gras, so for the big parade, we went downtown, had dinner at Bistro LeCroy (on The Strand) and then watched the parade on 21st Street.

This is us--me, the boy and the girl (kinda blurry--the fella took it)--on the street waiting for beads. I think we're just between floats. I did catch a respectable number of beads at this parade, including some fancy gold ones with crowns.

There was a guy who wanted to trade me for some of those crown beads. He offered me a string of plain beads plus a drink of his vodka. Um--no thanks. I'll pass.

The parade theme was "Treasures of the Sea." Hence the shark float here. You can maybe see the beads in mid-air. Some of those people could really throw those suckers.

Okay, so then on Sunday, we went to the midafternoon parade of the Krewe of Barkus & Meoux--the pet parade, sponsored by the local Humane Society. Any pet could march, but aside from a few ferrets in a cage in a wagon, most were dogs. And Oh the Costumes! Here, you see the Elvis Dog. There were greyhounds in Mickey & Minnie costumes, a standard poodle dyed green and purple, and dogs in just bandannas. Lots and lots of greyhounds.

We met up with a friend of mine who went to Baylor too, several years after I graduated. She was a writer friend while she was in Baylor, and now, we both live in Galveston (though she's now way out on the West End).

There was a children's parade after the dog parade, and we got tired and sat down to wait for it to arrive.

She brought her toddler, who is massively cute, and warmed up to me enough to give me a hug, which totally warmed this Gigi's heart. The Toddler also danced. No music, she just danced.

We got massively annoyed at the grownups who brought their beer cooler and snatched the beads away from the children at the Children's parade. I didn't actually Catch any beads at this parade, but I picked up a few--we gave all ours away to the kids. (The folks with the beer cooler didn't.)

The last pictures I want to share with you are first: Orchy, the first grocery store orchid I have ever been able to get to bloom. It's only the third one I've ever bought--the one I bought in the Panhandle dried up, poor thing. But the 1st one I bought in Galveston grew a baby on its flower stem I didn't cut off. It survived the winter inside, and thrived, apparently, outside in our humidity and heat. So I bought another one. And look! It's blooming! I'm all excited. I guess you can tell, huh? I mean, I named the plant. (sigh)

The little clay pot in the background is the baby orchid I cut off from its Mama, finally. It seems to be doing well. Growing a new leaf and everything.

And finally, another flower picture, just because I think they're so pretty. After Valentine's Day, the local Kroger put all its tulips on 2/3 off, so I bought Two bunches. (Hey, they were cheap, fresh and so pretty.)

Those are all the fella's books. I have three bookcases in my office (2 huge), plus some built-ins and another big bookcase in the living room. This does not count all the books in boxes in the garage, or the e-books on the SD card. :)

Oh, and the basket? Corrals all the Wii-motes and Wii games. Mama likes to play. :)

Seven Things About Me

The lovely Carol Burnside presented me with this award on Monday because-- well, maybe because I was somebody she knew with a blog who hadn't received it yet. I'm not sure what it's an award for. Oh, I know!

It's for Being a Great Person! (If I present it to you, you can make up your own reason for receiving the award--or you can use mine.)

The conditions that come with this award are that I must tell you seven things about myself that you may not know, and I must send it on to seven more people.

So, without further ado, here are my seven things.

1. I am an oldest child, and despite my disorganized nature, have a tendency to want to organize others.
2. I have two-toned eyes. Really. Yellow in the middle, and blue around the edges.
3. I am BONE lazy. Alas. My ideal day would be sitting around, reading books all blessed day long.
4. I wrote my thesis for my master's degree in history on Baptist missions in China from 1911 to 1945. Really.
5. I sing alto. I really prefer singing the harmony, and not just because I can't hit those high notes.
6. I once had the Hallelujah Chorus memorized. (Alas, no longer.)
7. I played the flute (not very well) in marching band from junior high through college. (I mimed the piccolo part on Stars & Stripes Forever.)

Now, who shall I present with this lovely award??? I am presenting it to you because you are ALL Great People!!

1. C.E. Murphy (of Urban Shaman fame) at the essential kit.
2. April at In The Face of Dragons (like she needs more to do)
3. Kristen Ethridge, my Baylor Buddy
4. Robin D. Owens the Rita Award winner and Book Cover award winner (Congratulations!!)
5. Nalini Singh, of the new Guild Hunter books and the wonderful Psy-Shifter stories. (I love to say "I knew ya when.")
6. The fascinating Arwen Lynch at her blog Tarot by Arwen
7. Anne Marie Novark who is hugely supportive to writers at Just Write!

(Feel free to ignore me, but it's a nice picture to put on your blog.) (And hey! It's an Award! For whatever you feel you need an award for!) (Also, if you can't think of anything to blog about--which is not a problem for some of you, but sometimes is for me--this gives you something to blog about. Bonus!)

So. There it is. My award. And my awardees.

Mardi Gras and Mania

No, Mardi Gras did not cause my mania. That came from an entirely different source. But Mardi Gras was a whole lot of fun.

Last weekend was the first weekend of Mardi Gras. Galveston celebrates it too, on a scale commensurate with a town only 1/4 the size of New Orleans. There were three parades along Seawall on Saturday, one at noon, one at 3 p.m. and one at 6 p.m. I was going to ride with the fella in a convertable in the noon parade and toss stuff for the college, but the convertable owner/driver busted up her right foot recently enough that the doctor wouldn't let her drive (Maybe just the night before.) I didn't think there would be room for me on the float (besides I would have had to stand up), so I sent him off to fling beads on his own, and walked down to Seawall with the boy. (The picture is of the arch downtown, at one of the downtown parades. They're next weekend.)

One of his friends had set up a flatbed trailer in front of the grocery store, with a grill, and he and his family were grilling all sorts of things. Chicken, venison-cheese-jalapeno sausage (Yum!), brisket, ribs, boudin--you name it, they were cooking that stuff on that grill. Ate a sausage and a chicken leg, hollered for beads during the Aquarius krewe parade, got sunburned, then walked back to the house. At 6, some more of the son's friends showed up--for the parking. Our house is closer to the seawall parades than a lot of people have to park. So we all walked back up to the grill trailer to watch the Gambrinus parade. Including Dolly the granddog. She was very good for the parade. The Budweiser Clydesdales fascinated her. The drums in the bands scared her, the first few of them. She ate lots of rib bones and snackies, (I had another half-sausage & a Mojito cooler) and she met a dog that looked almost exactly like her. The other dog had the same shade of brindle coat, same white face, same patch over the left eye--the main differences were that the other dog is 11 years old, and Dolly is 3, Dolly is a little bigger and heftier, and she has a white tip on her tail.

I scored some good beads. The fella threw me a string with harlequin jester heads, and never saw me waving at him. But he got me good beads anyway. :) And I got a strand of beads with beer mugs on them that night.

Then the next day I was packing up to travel to check on the Alzheimery parents, and got a phone call from my mom that my dad was in the hospital. So I hurried up to get here--He's home again now. He caught a stomach bug that he needed an IV to recover from. It's been pretty hectic. Haven't been able to write, for taking care of folks. But things just worked out okay. Now to get all their tax stuff together...still missing a couple of 1099s. Sigh.

Have you got ten minutes?

If you've got ten minutes, you can write a book. Ten minutes at a time. (You will need lots of ten minuteses, depending on how long a book you are writing.)

Okay, maybe not you, and definitely not me--but it is possible. There are those who are able to write in 10-minute increments. Then there are the people like me.

It takes me a while to get into the story. I need to re-read what I wrote yesterday, so I can remember where I was and what the dominant mood was for this particular scene. I need to have my Coke Zero (preferably Vanilla), and my pen, and the right number of sheets of paper. Then I need to have at least an hour of uninterrupted time to accomplish much in the way of writing.

Some days I can write 2 pages in that time. Some days, I can get 3 or 4. If I have another hour after that, I can get even more done. (My handwritten pages usually translate to 1.5 typed pages--on average.)

Thing is, those ten minute "power bursts" can still help me get the writing done, even if I can't actually write much of anything in ten minutes.

I don't know about you, but lots of us who are working as writers have lots of other, non-writing stuff we have to deal with. It's that other stuff that usually leaves me overwhelmed and stressed out. But I can take a ten-minute break when I've been sitting so long at the writing that my knees are whining at me, and go pull a load of laundry out of the dryer. I can take ten minutes and call my dentist for an appointment, or call the parents and make arrangements to come see them. The dentist's visit will take more than ten minutes (alas), but once the appointment's made, it somehow ceases to hang over my head as Something I Have To Take Care Of.

I can even group all that stuff together and make myself do it in my less-productive writing time (afternoons, I tend to fall asleep over the writing) in order to free up my more productive hours for the Real Work. I got really good at grouping errands when I lived up in the panhandle, and had to drive 60 miles just to go to Target, or the cleaners. Now that I live in lovely Galveston (we have a Wal-Mart AND a Target! On This side of the Causeway!), I group visits downtown to the post office and library, and maybe even have lunch on The Strand. I save trips off the island till I have more than one reason to go. And I try my very best to protect my good writing time.

When I was talking to a friend about taking a leave of absence from the dayjob to finish my book due last fall, she scoffed and said "Do you really think you'll use that time to write?" I told her, "No, but I can use that time to do all the other stuff that eats away at my writing time." My dayjob was only part time, but I spent an awful lot of my best writing time doing things like getting my hair cut and teeth cleaned.

So, even if you know a technique someone recommends won't work for you--see if you can turn it inside out. Maybe it will work another way.

Try a 10-minute burst of work--whether writing, or that other stuff. See which way it might work for you.

Experimenting with recipes

I made chicken-spinach enchiladas tonight.

I used a vegetarian recipe and...adapted it.

See, I don't live with vegetarians. The men in my life are very much carnivores, so I knew they would not eat anything without meat. And I thought I remembered them both ordering chicken-spinach or shrimp spinach enchiladas at one time or another, so I decided to add chicken. Alteration #1.

Change #2: the recipe called for cottage cheese. I do not like cottage cheese. Unlike the guy in opposition to Sam I Am, I HAVE tried cottage cheese, and I do not like it. It's lumpy. I do not like the lumps. So I bought ricotta, since I'm told it's similar in taste, but it isn't lumpy.

Also, the recipe was for spinach-broccoli enchiladas. I figured by adding the chicken, I would already have a whole lot of filling to put in my tortillas, so I left out the broccoli. Change #3. I put in more salsa, because it seemed a little dry to me--I'm not sure that was a big enough change to count. I mean, I had all that chicken, so I had a great big bunch of filling, of course it would need more salsa and the recipe did call for it. I just used twice as much (and poured even more over the top.

Then, since we are a gluten-free household--at least for our main dish--I subbed corn tortillas for the flour tortillas the recipe called for. Change #4. Corn tortillas are better for you anyway. For reals. (I like them better in enchiladas, usually.)

So, instead of vegetarian spinach-broccoli-cottage cheese flour tortilla enchiladas, we had spinach-chicken-ricotta corn tortilla enchiladas. Flavored with salsa and cumin, with grated cheddar to make them even cheesier (all that, plus the sauteed onion, was in the recipe). I wasn't exactly creating a new recipe, just tweaking it to make something my family could and would eat. They were muy delicioso.

I suppose the daughter could use tofu instead of ricotta for the dairy sensitive grandboy? Make him his own dish of enchiladas?

Oh, and I got THREE pages written today. Go me!

Quick Post about Weird Dreams

I had a doozy. I tend to have rather standard dreams--like the one where you signed up for a class in college and somehow never managed to go, and now it's the final... Or the one where I'm walking to class and realize I'm still in my pajamas.

However, this one was REALLY weird. I blame it on my New Dog Fever.

I was teaching--either substituting or doing some kind of presentation in a class at a high school. (I do not teach high school, and never have.) I was on the third floor of this high school, which was build with wide balconies around an atrium, and the dog had apparently come to school with me, but stayed outside. Mostly, the dog was Dolly the granddog, but sometimes she morphed into Pretty, the other granddog (that doesn't live with me), and for a while there, we had two dogs. Anyway, That was just the set up to the dream.

The actual dream--the dog got into the school, and climbed up to the third floor to find me. I came out of the class, thinking "Oh, no. I have to get this dog out of the school without anybody knowing it's MY dog, and without her causing too much disruption."

But when I came out onto the big balcony, the dogs (there were 2 at this point) were barking. At A COW. On the third floor of this school.

The cow was apparently supposed to be there. In the hall, on the third floor. It was on a leash, and a student was leading it. The dogs were not supposed to be there barking at the cow. (There may have been another animal, but my vision was pretty much locked on the Cow. And the dogs.) I called, without using Dolly's name, hoping she would come to me and I could act like she wasn't really my dog (she's not, after all)--you know, the "come here, puppy," and making kissy noises. She came, and I started walking away, around the balcony, and she followed, jumping up and licking my fingers and such.

Here, things got a bit muddled into the height dream (walking across very high dangerous places without a railing) and getting out of the school--but that was basically my dream. Dogs at school, and a COW.

I know. It must be part of the vivid imagination thing. (I dreamed a couple weeks ago that we were house sitting for Michael Jackson--he hadn't died, apparently, and was living just down the street from us...) Dunno. (When we first met Michael Jackson, he was wearing a dress, much like the one Kiefer Sutherland wore on the Late Night show...) Maybe it just means that I'm warped. Sadly, deeply, warped.

New Words

Today, I wrote 1-1/2 pages of new material for the first time in about 3 months.

I haven't been sitting on my assets during that time. I've revised and sent a science fiction romance partial to my agent in October. I typed in all I had of the historical novel and sent that to my agent in November. I revised a contemporary paranormal romance partial and finally got that out last week. I needed that time off. But now, it's time for new stuff.

The excitement is building for this story, even though I've been doing all kinds of procrastination stuff this week during my writing time. I unboxed and installed my new printer. I read the last 3 chapters of the wip (and cried till tears dripped off my cheeks at the last chapter. Again.) to get back into the world of the story. I made a calendar big enough to write out my timeline on and actually read it. I even looked up rivers in China and the Burma Road. But today, I took that necessary step. I put new words down on paper.

This is a story I'm already about halfway through. Maybe more (I never really know until I get to the end). I love the story. And still, every time, it's the same. The blank page mocks me. Until I pick up the pen and write some words on it. (Throwback, remember? First drafts in longhand. And some of them are Really Long First Drafts.) But then, once those words are written, it gets easier. I remember that I do sort of, kinda know what I'm doing. And that--okay, it's not easy, but it's not that hard either. And I like doing it. It's ... not fun, exactly, but-- satisfying. It feels Right.

I am still a busy, busy person. I have a doctor's appointment tomorrow, and am probably driving with my guys to take a load of stuff to the out-of-hurricane-range storage on Saturday. I may not get anything more written until Monday. But that's okay. Because I've STARTED.

I got the Fever

In our family, we often talk about how various family members get "new car fever." You know what that is. The urge, that grows to a need for a new car. Symptoms include driving by car lots, looking at car sites online, and eventually grow to stopping at the dealers and test driving cars. Severe cases result in, well--a new car. Whether you need one or not.

I don't have new car fever. I'm perfectly happy driving my silver beast. But I got the fever. For a number of things. Right now, I'm wallowing in "new dog fever." Yes, there is a sweet doggie living at our house. But she is the grand-dog, and she will be moving out when her boy graduates, gets a job and a new place to live. She's not MY dog. I was perfectly happy getting my dog fix from the grand-dog, until my daughter got a dog.

She called to tell me about picking her new doggie up. Her name is Pretty, and she's a pit bull/German shepherd mix. I've heard all about how the grandboy wanted to climb in the back of their mini-SUV to ride with her, and how 10 minutes after they got home, he got down in her face and asked "You want to chase me?" I have heard how Pretty met Orm the guinea pig and just sniffed him.

I even got a phone call this a.m. to hear how the doggie and the piggy wanted to play with each other. Fer realz. Guinea pig jumped out of his cage while Momma was getting hay. Doggie sniffed piggy. Doggie went down in a "play bow"--the dog's invitation to play. Momma wasn't sure whether Pretty wanted to play with Orm like he was another dog, or like he was a toy, so she put the piggy back in his cage. Still, when Pretty comes to sniff him, he comes to the door like he expects her to give him a treat...

Anyway, all this talk of dogs had me going through Internet sites looking at the doggies available at local shelters and rescue groups for adoption. They are so CUTE. I want one so BAD. But I want a dog I can let in the house, and as long as we're renting... Sigh.

So, yeah. I got new house fever too. And spring fever--it's time for it to be warm again. Okay, it's still January, but flowers start blooming in February in Texas. The neighbor's jonquils have been blooming since Christmas.

About the only fever I don't have is the fever to write. I am procrastinating SO bad. I spent yesterday unpacking my new printer and getting it installed. I spent this morning re-reading the last 3 chapters I wrote so I'd be in the story. Tomorrow, I HAVE to start writing. The desk is (mostly) clear. The printer's installed. The blog is written (this one and the one at the To Be Read blog for Friday). I have no more excuses. Need to get started.

Yeah, I know all the tricks of the trade. I just have to do them.

TBR Challenge - January's Book

My book for January's TBR Challenge read is a series romance.

Moonlight and Mistletoe
by Dawn Temple

It's a Silhouette Special Edition, published November 2009.
This is a sweet, enjoyable read about a small-town girl and the big-city lawyer who isn't really trying to hustle her--he honestly thinks he's doing her a favor--but it's a favor she doesn't want, involving a pair of sleazy birth parents she'd just as soon forget. He doesn't believe she's as nice as she really is--and has trouble accepting that he's just as nice. There's a big dog, some local holiday festivities that remind me a lot of the holidays in all the little towns where I've lived, and just a great romance. I liked it a lot.

Yeah. I kinda specialize in short-and-sweet review-lets. :)

I'm posting this late on Thursday, but it's still Thursday!

I'm late because I had to rearrange my whole week to go to the parents' yesterday. I had intended to head up on Monday, but the doctor appts. they had on Tuesday they changed to Thursday. So I switched around the days I was going to work, and drove up yesterday.

And then today, while we were getting organized, the doctor's office called. Their systems were down, and they had to cancel ALL the patients' appointments for the day. Who knows when they'll be able to reschedule? And I needed to come back home, because I rearranged my work days to work tomorrow. Sigh.

I hope they can go by themselves. I wrote down Mama's question for the doctor, she put it in her billfold, then I wrote a note and stuck it on the outside of her purse that says "Doctor question is in the billfold." So maybe she'll be able to find it and ask it. If that doesn't work... Well, who knows when my stress level will go down...

I did finish reading my research book...

Riverside writers' retreat

I was here over the weekend, and it was wonderful. (This was Saturday, after the rain stopped--the view downriver from the upstairs deck.) We had workshops with a creativity coach who talked about recapturing the joy in writing, and how to be happily interrupted and other such things, plus there was time to write, and a concert, and white elephant gifting. Some of the white elephants were lovely. Some were...not so much.

The location was a house on an island in, I believe, the lower Colorado River. The only access to this island is by barge, or aerial tramway. It rained all day on Friday, the day we arrived, too wet, really, to cross on the barge. So we crossed on the tram.

The tram was WAY up in the air! And it was small. The wind was blowing, and the car tilted sideways, and it swung back & forth when it crossed the towers (that's the first tower in the picture--the barge landing is right below it, to the left). And I'm real nervous about heights. But I did okay. I did not scream and clutch at the handrails or cower on the floor. And I stopped shaking once we got on the ground. ;)

It was just a wonderful weekend. Everyone brought potluck for meals, and we had WAY more than anyone could eat. We didn't even open the ham someone brought.

My BFF Belinda came down from Waco with her fella, and they spent the night Thursday. Then Friday, in the pouring rain, we drove the "back way" down to the river house. We had to come a different way from everyone else, because the others were all coming down from Houston, and we had to just slide down the coast and come inland some from our island. Belinda and I drove in my "bus" and Ken followed us. In the rain. He likes to drive around and look at the country side. We were driving through flooded fields on both sides, lined with moss-draped trees. It was lovely. (Okay, the several junk yards we passed by weren't so great, but...)

The only access between the downstairs "quiet" floor and the upstairs "brainstorming / workshop" floor was an outside staircase, so we got a little wet carrying things up and down. Mary (whose house it was) got REALLY wet, driving the golf cart to pick people up. She was so wonderful to open up the house to everyone, and work so hard to get everyone there.

B and I got there around noon, so we could just wallow in the experience, and wallow we did. Belinda had a one-on-one session with the coach. I did Tarot readings for at least half of those who came, including the coach. Some of them told me what their question was, and others didn't, but they all said the readings were amazingly spot on. Well, one said she didn't see some of the things, but... Anyway-- I got a kick out of doing that.

Saturday night, Kathryn the coach, who is also a singer- songwriter, gave us a little concert with some wonderful songs. She did not bring enough CDs for everyone, and I don't have mine yet. But let me tell you, the song LIVING WELL is a fabulous bluesy creation and You Need To Hear It. I fully expect to hear another of her songs performed by some bigtime country singer in the near future.

Then it was time for the white elephant. I didn't get an elephant. I got a gun rack (for my (non-existent) rifle collection). Yes, those are deer hooves. Real ones. With fur and everything.

As you can see, I did bring it home. It's going in the Lions' Club white elephant Christmas party game this next year. :)

I told my son to bring his friend Walter over to see it. Walter grew up on a farm/ranch outside Tyler, TX. I think he will appreciate it. (Yes, the picture is sideways, but the deer feet are the right way up.)

So now, it is time for me to run to the grocery store for ice cream and Cokes. (In Texas, all sodas are Cokes, whether they are Coca-Cola or not, but I really am going to by Coke Zeros.) And then pack my car and head off to the parents'.

I started rewriting a synopsis for White Elk, Red Sword while I was at the retreat. Mostly I was there to refresh and renew, but I did start on the synopsis. I finished it yesterday. So now I'm reading research books, and I hope to get back to work writing next week. I aim to get my head back into the story so I can do it.