Now that I don't have to go back to the day job for a couple of weeks, I've quickly fallen into nocturnal hours. Last night I stayed up till about 1:30 and slept in. I think my demons are finally getting their way on when I can write. :-) Not that they didn't get their way far too often before, but now they have no restrictions.

I need to do a read through of chapter 3, but I think it's done. Needed to do a lot of work to that chapter. A lot of that was continuity stuff, some description (which I hate reading and writing) and a little suspense boost. I'm hoping it works, so I can move on to chapter 4. That chapter will take some time too because the changes in 3 are going to impact it, at least the beginning of it.

MN Weather Report: 20 degrees. Wind Chill: 6 degrees.

I've been trying and trying to come up with a title for today's post and finally decided it was a waste of time. Nothing interesting happened so what can I say?

Finished revising chapter 1 and am nearly finished with chapter 2. Sometimes it's hard to slip things in smoothly and that's what I was fighting. I needed to add continuity details and change things I had wrong. I can't believe how much time this took, although I did start late because of how long I slept.

Discovered that "It Takes a Thief" is replayed on Discovery at 9pm on Saturday nights which works out so much better for me than Wednesday nights. Now I have to remember to turn it on then. See THIS POST for more info about this show.

Oh, and I made a few minor changes to my blog over the past few days. Like adding a drop-down menu for the archives. That list was starting to get a little long. I wish I had more time to experiment because I'd love to change the look here to something more fun and less boring. Maybe I'll try to squeeze this in after I finish this book.

MN Weather Report: 27 degrees. Wind Chill: 15 degrees. About an inch or so of snow fell overnight.

So yesterday was my first day back at work after being sick for 3 days. I couldn't believe how much stuff I had piled up, but somehow, I got through it all. I ended up staying a few minutes late, but everything I could do was done. This is good because I did end up taking 2 full weeks off from work. For the next 16 days, I'll get to pretend I'm able to write full time. Damn, I wish I could. It'll be a hell of a lot of work--I know because I went through this with TPOT--but even working 12-16 hours a day writing is more fun than 8 hours at the day job.

I slept really, really late this morning. I guess because I was so tired out from going back to work. But when I get off here, I'm going to shower and start working.

I did some more exploring yesterday online (Too early to sleep, too brain dead to write) and found some really cool research sites. My bookmarks keep growing by leaps and bounds. But I found this site where people create bookmarks online. Then, as someone saves something to their list, the link goes up publicly too. I was totally amazed by how cool some of these sites are! I found a bunch of stuff for web design/creation and really cool dictionaries. Like the one that has swear words in 165 different languages! I could have spent hours on that site looking for more cool links. Unfortunately, while they're broken down by category, they're not sorted and I had to page through them. Also if more than one person bookmarked it, the link is repeated, so it takes time to wade through them. I keep thinking of what other treasures lurk there, but it'll have to wait.

MN Weather Report: 22 degrees. Wind chill: 10 degrees.

Don't ask me why I have a song from Snow White going through my head. At least it's a change from the Garth Brooks song I've been hearing for the past 3 weeks or so. ;-) Yeah, I am going back to work, but even so, it's an odd musical choice.

Didn't get a damn thing done yesterday. I was really lethargic all day and didn't do much of anything. Dabbled a little with the prologue, but after starting three different versions and not being happy with any of them, I decided to give it up.

So what did I do? Found a list online titled The 46 Best-Ever Freeware Utilities and checked a few of them out. There were several interesting ones, several I already have and use and one called YPops, that I downloaded. It's a program that forwards Yahoo mail to a computer's email client. Works slick as spit and the instructions for configuring the email client are crystal clear. So far, I'm very happy with it and toying with changing a number of my Yahoo Groups to that email addy.

Yep, that was my big accomplishment for the day. :-(

I have to head into work today because I plan on taking nearly 2 weeks off to work on TACV. I was going to take 2 full weeks, but because I was sick, I feel like I have to go in for at least a couple of days next week. Sigh. This is close to the worst possible time for me to get something. The only way it could be worse was if it had hit in the first weeks of March. Nothing I can do about it, but I'm really going to have to be able to put in the 16 hour days for the next couple of weeks without my body relapsing.

MN Weather Report: 18 degrees. Wind Chill: 11 degrees.

I was watching Mythbusters last night and I love that quote from Adam Savage--"I reject your reality and substitute my own." I'm using it as my sig on one of the message boards I visit even though a ton of people are already quoting it. There's something so cool about that statement. :-)

My reality still includes being sick. I am feeling much better and am on the upside, but I can't get enough sleep and I'm a tad fuzzy headed, which means I haven't accomplished much with TACV. I did finish reading through it, but that's about all I've done. Very frustrating to be slow mentally at a time when I need to really be pushing forward. I wish there was some way to reject my body's reality and substitute my own. ;-) Tomorrow I have to go back to work, and that should leave me crawling into bed when I get home and napping again. Sigh.

Today's plan is to read through all the emails I have about the series (and there are a ton of them) and look for any issues I've missed and need to address in TACV. That should be interesting since I have trouble focusing for long.

And I think I'm going to stop here before I bore people to death.

MN Weather Report: 24 degrees. Wind Chill: 16 degrees.

Now that might not seem like a big deal, but I never drink coffee when I'm sick. It's like my body rebels at the very thought. Today, however, I actually wanted a cup. I do feel better, but this is validation that I've turned the corner and am on the mend. Thank God for antibiotics. They're the best! :-)

Of course, I haven't been able to do anything productive while I've been sick. I did read through about half of TACV--2 chapters on Monday and about 10 chapters yesterday. I found some repetition and things I could cut. Also found a bunch of places that need to be smoothed out or reworked. I found a few minor details that I'd dropped somewhere after the mid point of the book, so those will have to be carried through. Found things I need to foreshadow earlier and other things I need to strengthen. Oh, and I still need to write the prologue. GAH!

All I have to say is my body better hurry the hell up and get 100% better pronto because I have too much work to do in too short a time frame and do NOT have time for the mental sluggishness that goes with being sick. Or all the sleeping my body wants to do. And I really must be feeling better, because I'm really impatient with the remaining sick symptoms. :-)

MN Weather Report: 13 degrees. Wind Chill: None (Bet you missed this. ;-)

The first two Crimson City books are up for preorder now on Amazon!

Crimson City - Liz Maverick

A Taste of Crimson - Marjorie M. Liu

How exciting is this???

Yesterday ended up being a total bust. :-( I went back to work--still sick--but I didn't want anyone to think I was taking sick time to write, you know? It might cause problems. So I dragged myself in. I did okay until about 12:30, but after that, it was a challenge to sit upright. As soon as I got home, I crawled into bed and slept. I did call in sick today--after hearing me hack yesterday, no one can question it. I took the cough medicine with codeine in it and I'm loopy right now. :-) I also haven't coughed too much this morning.

Needless to say, that my plans to read through TACV didn't get very far. In that respect, the whole day was wasted. As soon as some of the codeine wears off, though, I'll pick up the manuscript again and get reading. I don't have time to be sick. This just totally blows.

I finished the epilogue yesterday. I haven't dared to reread it yet in case it's unintelligible. Not only was I running a fever, but I was using the heavy duty bronchitis cough medicine which contains codeine. For all I know, I have a five page mess on my hands. After I finish here, I'll take the plunge.

Bad night last night with the cough and the fever, but I think the anti-biotics are kicking in now. The cough isn't as deep. Of course, going to work today is going to be a strain. :-/

And to finish up, I still need to write the prologue. It's going to be in a POV (Point of View) other than my h/h and I'm trying to get to know this character well enough to write in his head. I know about what's motivating him in this scene, but I'm not sure if it's enough. I guess I'll just have to try writing and see.

Also printed out the entire manuscript for TACV and I'm going to start reading through it today. I really need to figure out what kind of revisions I'm going to need. Only 3 weeks till I have to mail this thing and I hyperventilate whenever I think about that.

MN Weather Report: 14 degrees. Wind Chill: 2 degrees.

Well, I did it. The book that would not end is done! Hurrah!

I still have the prologue and epilogue to write, but those should go fairly fast since I plan to keep both short. Then I can start the fun of revising. :-(

At some point while I was writing yesterday, I started coughing. By the time I went to bed, it was worse. At 4am, I knew it was bronchitis again. Boy, revising should be just a walk in the park when I can't think straight.

MN Weather Report: 30 degrees. Wind Chill: 24 degrees. Snow Fall: 4-5 Inches and still snowing.

I spent more time yesterday thinking about characters. Not about how they're the ones in control, but on how different they are from one another in small things. For example, Cai said "crap" all the time. I'm guessing she picked up the habit from Jake, but that she couldn't quite bring herself to say "shit" like he does and so cleaned it up a little. I don't think Mika says "crap" even one time.

Then there's Jake and Conor. Jake swore--a lot. All the time and had to struggle not to use the harder language around Cai. Conor doesn't swear too much, but when he's mad enough, he will drop the F word without any concern over Mika's presence. I've actually had to clean up his language for the book in a couple of places in TACV. I figure that my publisher is only going to let me use the F word and one other word once, or if I'm lucky, twice, and there's one spot I really want it used, so I've taken it out of the other two or three places.

The other thing I spent a little time thinking about yesterday was if I was going to hear snide comments about writing two Asian heroines in a row. That's not quite the way it really worked. After I finished TPOT, I wrote two other proposals and revised a third one and none of these three stories had a heroine of Asian descent. It just so happened that the fourth proposal I worked on--the one with the half Japanese heroine--is the one that sold next. I finally decided that I'm not going to worry about it now. I've got enough other stuff to worry over. And if I have characters who come in and are of different ethnicities, I see no reason not to write them that way. It's part of who they are.

You're probably wondering why I spent so much time thinking about stuff like this when I should have been writing. When you're staring at a blank page, there's lots of time to think. :-( Despite taking the day off from work, I got nothing down until about 6:30 at night. In the next 3 hours, I wrote about 8 pages, but it was that nocturnal thing again. For a while, I was lamenting wasting vacation time when nothing got done, then I decided if I'd been up since 4am and had worked all day, there would have been no way to write 8 pages before my brain turned off, so the vacation hours weren't wasted.

I did some more thinking about the scene I'm working on while I was lying in bed. (Yes, definitely a day for thinking. ;-) I need to make a couple of changes to the end of the page where I left off and I figured out that Mika is having an emotional as well as physical reaction, so I need to add that.

My plan is to finish this book today (not counting epilogue and prologue) even if it kills me. And considering how hard the writing came for so long yesterday, it just might. ;-)

On another note, my Boomtown Rats' CDs arrived yesterday. I listened to "The Fine Art of Surfacing" after I finished writing for the day. I totally love that CD. I'm going to have to bring it in the car when I go to work on Monday so I can listen on my ride home. I don't like noise in the mornings--of any kind--and will not be playing it while I drive on snow impacted roads to work. (Yes, my misery continues. It's supposed to start snowing tonight and snow all day on Sunday.)

MN Weather Report: 15 degrees. Wind Chill: 4 degrees.

For the last couple of days, I've been thinking about writing and control. There are writers who claim they have it, that they outline what they're going to do and then they write it. I've never understood how they do that or even why they'd want to--half the fun of writing for me is the surprises--but right about now I envy them.

You see, I've never had any control in my writing. My characters do what they want when they want to do it and I'm like the secretary--I make notes. Oh, I've tried to get them to do what I want/need them to do or think my way. And the writing comes to a screeching halt until I surrender and hand the reins back to my hero and heroine again. I can argue with them, try to cajole them or negotiate with them to do things the way I want, but ultimately, it's up to them.

So how does a writer take control and not have their characters absolutely refuse to cooperate? I did try--and not that long ago--and I couldn't write even a sentence worth keeping for a week. After spinning my wheels and becoming more and more frustrated, I'm the one who gave in. :-)

It's nothing I'm going to experiment with now, but it's oh, so tempting. Mika and Conor have dragged out their book longer than any other first draft I've ever written. I have just 24 more writing days left, and I still can't get these two finish up and have their HEA ending. I'd actually written a vague outline for the last 4 chapters of TACV and Mika and Conor blew it all to hell for me. :-( This is why I'd like control. I'd like to tell them, hey! Stop screwing around and let's get this show on the road! But of course, it doesn't work that way and so I add another chapter to The Book That Will Not End.

Control? Ha! I'm just along for the ride.

MN Weather Report: 3 degrees. Wind Chill: 3 degrees.

I had one of those nights. I kept waking up from bizarre dreams, and when I fell back asleep, it was like a different episode of the same dream. Most of it took place in a hotel room, but then I moved to a different hotel room. Anyway, I'm really tired. I wish I could stay home from work again today, but there doesn't seem to be much point.

Last night, I watched a very interesting show; It Takes a Thief. It was on the Discovery Channel and featured two former burglars. What they do is show a family how easy it is to break into their house, set their house up so it's more secure, and then try to break in again. It's a hell of a scam for the two former burglars. :-) But I found the show very fascinating. I need to find out when Discovery replays it because 9pm on a Wednesday night is not going to cut it and I want to see this again. I have a character who steals--of course, she's a cat burglar, not a common break and enter house thief, but I still learned all kinds of stuff.

I kind of blame this show for my restless night, though. The hotel dreams had to do with intrusions through mostly open doors. Which is what this family was doing--leaving their doors unlocked.

MN Weather Report: 15 degrees. Wind Chill: 4 degrees.

I woke up this morning, logged on to read email and had a GREAT surprise! The Power of Two is a RIO Award of Excellence nominee in the Sci-Fi/Fantasy Fiction category!!! Whoo hoo! This did a better job of waking me up today than my jumbo cup of coffee. :-) I can't wait to see who else is nominated--I'm hoping for the rest of the 2176 series as well as some friends of mine in other categories. :-) Totally happy dog dancing this morning!

This thoroughly eclipses my other good news. Last night, I'd been smiling because Amazon notified me that my Boomtown Rats CDs had shipped. "The Fine Art of Surfacing" is one of my all time favorites and I ordered "Mondo Bongo" too. It doesn't sound quite so thrilling this morning. ;-)

It also eclipses my other exciting news--pitchers and catchers have reported for spring training. :-) Yes, I'm a baseball fan and I love writing with a game on television. Winter is so hard because there's nothing to tune into while I write. It has to be something I can follow without sound and that makes it tough. But this is the first sign of spring and now I can't wait till opening day.

MN Weather Report: 16 degrees. Wind Chill: 2 degrees.

I've been trying to come up with something interesting to write here today, but I'm afraid it's a lost cause.

I could complain about the computer migration that finally happened at the day job and how I couldn't get into any program that I use in my job for about 3 hours until a computer guy showed up. But I don't feel like complaining about the idiocy that is the IS department.

I could mention that the road that was supposed to be closed for ONE week is now finally open again after FIVE weeks. Of course, I was stopped by heavy machinery blocking the road for a while and had to wait, so I'm not sure I saved any time avoiding the four mile detour I'd been taking for more than a month now. But I don't feel like complaining about freeway construction. Enough to say that it's been ongoing for more than 2 years now (I think) and that I have at least another 2 years to go. If they finish on time.

I could mention the horrible snow we received overnight on Sunday--about half of it melted yesterday, but now it's turning colder so we should have some nice patches of ice. But I don't feel like complaining about the weather.

You're probably thinking what's wrong? I can complain with the best of them at any time. But the truth is, I don't have the energy. Everything is focused now on this book and it will be until it's completely finished and winging it's way out of Minnesota. I've reached the point where anything that takes energy and isn't directed toward TACV is a huge imposition and where there is pretty much nothing else on my mind except the book. Which makes me a fascinating conversationalist--just ask my coworkers. ;-)

MN Weather Report: 29 degrees. Wind Chill: 24 degrees.

I feel as if I barely had a weekend. It all passed in one big blur and here it is, Monday. Again. It's always Monday.

Action scenes always take me a long time to write and this one is posing some unusual problems. I was hoping to finish the entire chapter yesterday--and if not the chapter, the scene, but that didn't happen. I did make some solid progress, however. Yea!

I've got nothing else to talk about today. :-/

Edited to add: Happy Valentine's Day

MN Weather Report: 32 degrees. No Wind Chill. Two inches of ugly, wet, heavy snow fell overnight.

I'm almost done now. Just a couple more scenes to write and this book will be ready to be revised. One of them, of course, is an action scene and those are hard for me. It's all the choreography and trying to figure out who's doing what and to whom. I had an unexpected revelation last night as I was trying to sleep, and while it makes the scene more complicated, I think it ups the ante as well so that's a good thing.

My prediction of going 50 pages over was a bit pessimistic, I think. Now that I'm closer to finishing, I'll return to my original prediction of 30-40 pages. At least I think that was my original prediction. A lot of it is going to depend on how long the prologue and epilogue end up being--the prologue will actually be the last thing I write. :-) I'm still waiting for an answer on stuff there, so I may be working on it after I've done some revision to the main part of the book.

I had the dog show on the Animal Planet on while I was working last night. I don't know if this was a repeat or not--some of those dogs looked damn familiar. But while they were showing it, there were ads for the agility competition and obedience. I noticed that they didn't show any Siberian Huskies doing obedience. :-)

My last dog was a Husky/Shepherd cross, but she had the Husky personality. Those dogs are stubborn as hell and taking her through obedience school was an experience. Um, do I need to mention she didn't do real well? As we went up to get our diploma and dog cookie at the last class, my dog jumps up, puts her two front paws on the table, and leans her face in to the instructor. I'm guessing she thought the instructor should have given her the dog cookie and not handed it to me. If the dog was out playing in the yard and I called her to come inside, I could actually see her stop and consider whether or not she wanted to listen. :-) This ended up being the animal of my heart and it was really hard when she died.

MN Weather Report: 37 degrees. Wind Chill: 29 degrees: Forecast: Rain turning to snow.

The furnace is taken care of, and once more, there's heat in the house. Hurrah! It was damn cold yesterday morning and even colder by the time the furnace was fixed and the heat could be turned on again. I've maintained for years that I would make a very poor pioneer--that if it had been up to me, America would still be unsettled wilderness. I'm not much for roughing it and no heat falls into that category. Luckily, it was in the 40's yesterday. I shudder to think how cold it would have been if we'd had our usual MN cold.

Anyway, the writing was going excessively well--until Mika turned stubborn. I think I've got a way around her, though, and it will bring out more of Conor's demon side so it works on two levels. I'm going to end up with about a week less for revising than what I'd scheduled for, but I'm really running long again too. I honestly don't know how this happens to me. I've upped my estimate and am guessing I'll run about 50 pages over the 400 mark by the time it's all said and done. Of course, I'll be cutting on revision and there's always room to tighten up. The second "of course" is that I'll need to add description. I tend to skip over that when I'm writing and add later. (I tend to skip it when I read too. Hate it when the author's vision intrudes on mine.)

I'm still tired, but couldn't sleep any more. I want to get to the story right away, and after laying in bed for about an hour, thinking about it, I decided to get up, have coffee and get going.

MN Weather Report: 26 degrees. No Wind Chill. Forecasted High: 44 degrees.

I think Friday is my favorite day of the week because then I have the whole weekend to look forward to. Even on Saturday, part of the time is gone and work is hours closer. :-( I'd much rather be writing.

At an RWA conference one year, (I can't remember which year), one of the luncheon speakers (I can't remember who, not for sure) said something along the lines of most people want to win the lottery so they can quit their jobs and have fun. Writers are the people who want to win the lottery so that they can write full time.

I loved that because it's sooo true! I always think of how nice it would be to win the jackpot and do exactly that. :-) It's been my dream since I figured out I wanted to write for a career. (high school age). Of course, I rarely buy a lottery ticket which makes it a tad difficult to win. I guess I'll have to wait for the Prize Patrol to arrive on Super Bowl Sunday. ;-)

MN Weather Report: 25 degrees. Wind Chill: 18 degrees. Forecasted high: 42 degrees.

It is Thursday, right? I think I remember going to a staff meeting yesterday at work, so it must be. :-)

I finished the chapter/scene that would not end. Hurrah! I'm on the home stretch now and then the fun of revision can begin. :-/ In general, I don't enjoy revision a whole lot, but on the other hand, it'll be nice to have the book done and only have to fix things. This can be a lot of work too, but it's a different kind of work than actually writing the story, at least it is for me. I can only write for 6 or so hours and then my brain turns off, but I can revise for 12-16 hours at a stretch and did with TPOT.

And continuing my ever-glamorous life, I went to bed early again last night. Woke up with a sinus headache and the furnace making noise. I do not have time to deal with this.

MN Weather Report: 11 degrees. Wind Chill: 1 degree.

I went to bed early last night and feel much better today. Still tired, because I didn't go to bed that early, but at least I'm able to hear the alarm. Which is a good thing since it snowed over night. Doesn't look like we received much, but all we need is a coating to mess up traffic.

I'm currently writing the scene that will not end. :-( I've never written a book before with so many long scenes/chapters. I've been trying to think how to get out of this with a bang and the only answer that came to me involves adding more pages to an already long chapter. I'm chanting my "it can be fixed on revision" mantra right now.

MN Weather Report: 20 degrees. Wind Chill: 20 degrees. Forecasted High: 22 degrees.

Once again, I'm chug-a-lugging coffee, and yes, once again, I've overslept. I seriously am sleeping for two weeks solid after I turn this book in. I almost never, ever oversleep, yet that's all I've done for the past few weeks. :-(

The "upgrade" to my computer at work didn't go through because they ran into an error. With a little luck, they'll forget all about me. Some of the guys were down all day after IS "upgraded" us. Plus, now the computers are slower. Boy, gotta love it, don't you? But this now means that any day I can walk in and find the same chaos.

MN Weather Report: 15 degrees. Wind Chill: 6 degrees. Forecast: Snow. :-(

I ended up not watching as much of the Super Bowl as I usually do. From what I did see, I wasn't that impressed with the commercials this year. I'm hoping I missed the really good ones because I'd hate to think this was the best Madison Avenue had to offer. The commercial I liked best was actually a promo bit for NASCAR on FOX. It was the one with the pirates doing their swashbuckling thing. I can't figure out what that has to do with car racing, but at least it was visually interesting and seemed to be a high quality production.

I did actually catch part of the half time show. Usually, I avoid this because it's so boring, but I wanted to see what Paul McCartney did. It ended up being fun--he did a bunch of Beatle songs and the theme from "Live and Let Die."

My day at work promises to be full of more fun than any human being should have to suffer through. Our IS department--and DON'T get me started about them--reimaged our computers Friday night. Never mind that we just went through this a year ago when we got our "new" used computers. Some people actually had Web Shots on their PC's. Gasp. And this kind of anarchy must be quashed. Why the next thing you know, we might actually enjoy using our computers at work. (The best I can do in the sarcasm department at 4:30 in the morning.) Because of IS and their unswerving need to keep absolute and total power, I will now have an entire day where I get no work done because I'll be unable to access any of my programs. Sigh. I'm just too damn tired to deal with this crap.

Right now I'm estimating that Through a Crimson Veil is going to come in about 30-35 pages long. This will make it longer than the first version of Power of Two that I turned in last year and that story had more subplots going on. I'm not quite sure how I ended up with so many pages when I deliberately kept this story simple so I wouldn't run long. Maybe by the time I turn it in, I'll be able to trim stuff out and shorten it up a little bit.

The writing went really well on Sunday. If IS hadn't scheduled our department for a day of living hell, I would have taken today off and kept writing. Although maybe it's a good thing that I'll have some time to think about this next scene. I'm not quite sure how I'm going to work out a few logistical details yet.

MN Weather Report: 14 degrees. Wind Chill: 0.

The covers for the first two books in the Crimson City series are ready! I'm so excited to see them and now I'm anxious to see my own. It will be a bit of wait, though, for my Through a Crimson Veil cover because I just sent the info for the art in at the beginning of January. I totally love the font they're using for the series (see previous blog posting about my fanaticism for fonts). If you'd like to see the covers yourself, check out the websites for Liz Maverick and Marjorie M. Liu.

Today's Super Bowl Sunday. I'm not as much of a football fan as I once was. The Minnesota Vikings can beat the interest out of anyone. (Just think back to the season they went 15-1 and then lost to Atlanta in the playoffs.) And I don't have too much interest in either team that's playing tonight, but I love the commercials!

Yep, there was a reason I majored in advertising at the University of Minnesota; I love ads that are done well. The Super Bowl isn't quite the Clio reel (The Clio Award is the Oscar of the advertising industry), but it's damn close. I'm definitely looking forward to tonight and keeping my fingers crossed for some great commercials!

MN Weather Report: 27 degrees. Wind Chill: 14 degrees. Winter is back. :-(

I was thinking about something some writing friends said a while back. There are a couple of them, authors who've been around a long time, who said they've run out of stories, that they just write because they like writing.

This mindset left me boggled and I spent a lot of time mulling this over. How can anyone run out of stories? I have 5 filing cabinet drawers and a notebook full of ideas and every story I've started in the last five years--with one exception--has been something brand new. So I mulled some more. :-)

My conclusion is that I'm not writing because I love writing. I love storytelling and writing is merely the vehicle. If I found another way to share my stories with others, I could walk away from writing without much regret. Writing is my process, not my love. The storytelling and the characters are what I adore. Maybe these other authors love the process of writing more or something. I don't know because they are storytellers too, but I think their focus must be different. Maybe. This is kind of hard to articulate in a way that makes sense.

I can easily see myself in past lives as the village storyteller or as part of a troupe traveling the countryside, looking to perform their stories or plays for the people in different areas of the kingdom. I've had an interest in theater forever, and when I was in junior high school was awarded the part of the narrator for a fairy tale play we performed for younger children. Storyteller. :-)

That's what it comes down to for me, sharing my characters' stories with others. I'm sure I've mentioned it before, that my hero and heroine come in as fully formed people--actually all my characters do--and it's just a matter of getting to know them and what's important to them. I don't create anything about them. Trust me on this one. I've sat for a week, unable to write a word, because I tried to have a character think something that wasn't right for him. It was only after I asked him what the hell was his problem that he told me what his thoughts on what had happened were. Once I changed that, the rest of the chapter flowed easily.

I've had some writers comment that I shouldn't let my characters have so much control, that I should make them do what I want. But my question is why? Why shouldn't I let my hero and heroine do what fits them? That doesn't mean I can't negotiate with them to do things a little differently and it doesn't mean that I can't take suggestions from editors. I have and it's strengthened the story. But what it comes down to is being true to the characters, letting them reveal themselves, watching them grow. That's what makes this fun for me.

Edited to add: This doesn't mean that I don't want to be a good writer and continue to hone my skills. I do. I'm a perfectionist and I keep trying to attain the perfect first draft. Of course, this is impossible since there's no such thing as a perfect book, let alone a perfect first draft, but that doesn't keep me from trying.

I could go on some more about this, but I think I'll quit here. :-) I have more writing to do.

MN Weather Report: 42 degrees. Wind Chill: 38 degrees.

Ran most of my errands after work yesterday. I woke up so tired, I didn't know how I was going to do them all, but the nice, warm weather and the sunshine got me pepped up (for a little while) when I left work. I still have to mail a package, but I'll do that today and then I should be done--at least for a little while.

I watched some of the Happy Days Reunion show last night. Scott Baio looked good. :-) I wasn't someone who found him particularly attractive when he was younger, but now he looks just fine. Kind of like Johnny Depp. I thought he was pretty on Twenty-One Jump Street, but I never really drooled over him. (Give me Richard Grieco!) But once he grew up and got a little more rugged-looking (Pirates of the Caribbean), I joined the crowd. I guess I don't like men who are way too pretty--I do like them with an edge to them. Something Scott Baio and Johnny Depp acquired with some age.

It reached 50 degrees here yesterday--just one degree short of a record.

MN Weather Report: 37 degrees. Wind Chill: 32 degrees. Forecasted high: 50 degrees. (Hurrah!)

It's a good thing I was holding on to my laptop yesterday evening. My first book, Ravyn's Flight, is out of print and to the readers who've emailed me asking where to find the book, I've suggested Bookstore Junkies, eBay and Half.com. Well, I just saw on Half.com yesterday that someone is charging nearly $60 for the book! That's absolutely ridiculous. I was complaining about the price gouging by the booksellers on Amazon, but they're not even close to this kind of money. Good grief.

I've been feeling really stressed this week. I have a gazillion errands to run and I'm supposed to write. I'm debating just taking today and doing everything on my mile long list of things to do. I really need a personal assistant. And I'm backed up on email again. Maybe a clone would be better. Doesn't help that I've been so exhausted this week that I can't get enough sleep.

MN Weather Report: 35 degrees. Wind Chill: 26 degrees.

Overslept, that is. The mad scramble to get ready for work's left me feeling discombobulated (I love this word!), but I'm here and I was ontime (whew!) for another day of fun and frolic at NWA. (Sarcasm is very much intentional.)

I was thinking about writing the other day and this blog. How much info should I put in about how the writing is going? There's a quote, something like the layman doesn't want to see how sausage is made or books written, and I can definitely understand that. Writing a book can be an ugly process and each story brings new problems in, so an author is never prepared for what's going to hit them.

For example, my first drafts are normally very close to the final version. Oh, there are always plot holes to plug and description/details to add and plenty of work to be done, but usually what I get when I'm done spewing is pretty much done. But that doesn't seem to be happening this time. It looks like I'm going to have changes that affect story structure, so I'm busting my butt to finish this first draft on my original schedule to give myself time to revise. (See first paragraph about exhaustion/oversleeping). This is a brand new problem for me, one I've never had before, so I've no idea how long it's going to take me to fix it. :-(

Anyway, I have to get to work.

MN Weather Report: 29 degrees. Wind Chill: 21 degrees. Forecast: They claim we may see the sun this afternoon!

I only finished 7 pages yesterday, but I felt as if I had a hangover much of the day. I'm unsure whether to blame it on all the writing I did on Sunday or on my stuffy sinuses. I love the warmer weather (30's), but my sinuses do not. :-/ Another factor in this is the nocturnal writing thing. Most of Sunday's pages came between 8pm and midnight, however, I couldn't stay up that late when I have to go to the day job. Although I may as well have because I was still wide awake at 12:21--the last time I looked at the clock.

Have I bored you to tears yet? I apologize. Right now it's all I can do to focus my tired brain enough to type this little bit. I do not do 4am well on probably less than 3 hours of sleep. I am currently chug-a-lugging coffee and wishing I'd bought a lottery ticket for last Saturday (and had won, of course).

MN Weather Report: 32 degrees. No Wind chill - second day in a row! (PS we had about one inch of snow yesterday)