Happy Halloween, All!

Halloween is actually one of my favorite holidays. I like the idea of dressing up as something or someone different and just having fun. This isn't one of those days where you have to make a pilgrimage to a huge family get together, or where you have to worry about a whole lot of decorating and whatnot. Makes it relatively stressfree.

This GIF is one of the few Halloween images I have, and I'm not quite sure where I found it. Dancing Drac seems somehow appropriate for the holiday, yes?

Had a great writing day yesterday. I did 13 or 14 pages which is a lot for me. I could have pushed through to the end of the chapter, but the upcoming scene is a very important one and I didn't want to do it while I was brain dead. I should finish it today, then I can move on to the next. I'm in my favorite part of the book right now.

Actually, my favorite part of the book to write is the beginning. I love setting things up and getting to know the characters. Unfortunately, though, that horrid middle is waiting just off the map. So writing the ending chapters is my favorite part because there is no icky part waiting when they're done. Revision, while not a barrel of laughs, is much easier than the middle. Much easier.

Yikes! Supposed to rain much of this week. I hope the house crew gets a lot done on the nice days. I wonder what it does to the house when it rains and there's no roof on it yet?

I've wasted at least 20 minutes trying to come up with some kind of topic for today's blog, and nothing really struck me, so I'm going with a few random thoughts.

Bookscan. RWA allows its members to subscribe to Bookscan (which lists the top 100 selling romances each week) for a fee. This is the best money I've ever spent. I can't believe how much I learned about sales.

I've learned that there's Nora Roberts, and then there's everyone else. Her sales are at least double the number two selling author every single week. Last week, four of the top five spots were hers.

I've learned that some authors exaggerate how successful they are. What they say and what the numbers show are two very different things. When Ingram is added to the mix, there's almost no place left for them to hide. Makes me glad that I've never felt the need to fib.

My Writing. I finished the chapter I was working on and started the next. Very good production, and now I'm into the area where I know mostly what I want to do so the writing should continue to go fairly quickly. Hurrah!

Horses. Yesterday, NBC showed hours and hours of horse racing. It made me remember that I've loved horses since I watched Mr. Ed in reruns as a child. I don't want to ride a horse, I did it once and once was more than enough, but I would like a horse for a pet, kind of like a BIG dog. hee hee. It isn't going to happen. Too much money, too much work, but it was fun to watch these beautiful animals run while I was writing yesterday.

The Next Book. The hero and heroine from the book I'll be writing after Temple of Dreams made an appearance this morning while I was laying in bed. In a way, this is reassuring since they've been gone for so long, on the other hand, I don't need them interfering with my current progress. When I tried to think about TOD, I used two different names before I hit my current heroine's name. This is not good.

The 2 B Read Blog. The discussion about book titles is interesting. I've always known that I wouldn't be able to keep my titles, so I try not to become attached to them. But it's turned out that I have kept my titles.

Ravyn's Flight was always Ravyn's Flight. My usual method of naming is to take a character's name and stick another word with it, and ta-da, working title. :-) The Power of Two never had a title; I called it Banzai #4, and same thing with Through a Crimson Veil, I called it Crimson City #3. I was calling the WIP (work in progress) RFS for Ravyn's Flight, the Sequel, or as an alternate, joke title, Kendall Thomas and the Temple of Dreams. When it came time to submit the proposal, I went with Temple of Dreams on the suggestion of a friend when I couldn't come up with a better idea. Imagine my surprise when the decision was made to keep it! Of course, until the cover is done, it's not set in stone, so we'll see what happens.

I realized I haven't talked about the house since construction got underway. Maybe it's because it doesn't feel entirely real yet. Shrug.

Anyway, they broke ground last week, and poured the basement. Monday, they took the forms off. They also waterproofed around the cement and then backfilled around the foundation/basement with dirt. Thursday, they started framing and they plan to work through the weekend. I don't know how long it will take them total to finish this part of the process, but they seem to be making really good speed. The basement is all framed in, the subfloor down, and they're putting up the walls for the house now. I think the garage is done too. I can't really go walking over there to check it out because of all the dirt. The fashionable cam boot is tough enough to walk with on solid lawn--dirt is out of the question. Which means my dad is the one taking pictures of the building process. My poor father is very technology challenged and the digital camera is beyond him, so he's using a regular camera with film. I plan to post pictures of the house going up, but it'll be a while coming.

There was a flyer in the paper this week for some lighting store. I didn't find any interior lights that I liked, but I found a really cool outside light. Very different and modern looking. The big thing I'll have to find out is how easy it'll be to change the light bulbs in it because it looks difficult. That's going to be a big consideration, though.

I need to get out and look at brick/stone for the exterior and make a decision there, but I need to write. Maybe after work some afternoon.

And that is the house report.

Yesterday, I finally figured out something about the scene I've been struggling with. Since I powered through about 5 pages, I'm fairly confident that I picked the right avenue. But the problem came in as I was talking to a friend--we do a regular Thursday night writing report. I realized I'd hosed up the timeline. I can't remember doing this before. I wrote the scene as if it were a couple hours later than a scene that takes place earlier, it's really the next day. It won't be a big deal to change, but yikes!

I've been really good on Crimson Veil. I haven't done any google searches for my name or book title and I've been staying away from most boards. RBL is the exception because they don't slam authors or books there even if they don't love what they read. But one of the referers to our group blog came from a bulletin board, and I couldn't help it--I clicked over. I shouldn't have done that, of course, but it wasn't a horrible experience.

Only one person had posted that she read my book, and it seemed that she liked it well enough. I say seemed because 99% of her post was complaining about the book cover. She didn't like it because the hero on the cover is shorter than the heroine, and that's not the description I give in the book. Yeah, I noticed that too, however, I love every other aspect of my cover. The colors are fab, the setting is right on the money, the people on the cover look very close to how I envisioned my characters. I decided to ignore the shortness issue. Apparently, this was a huge deal to this woman, however, as the writer, I'm like big deal, what about the story. :-)

I found out yesterday, that Through a Crimson Veil is going back for a second printing! Hurrah! I just hope there are enough copies available until the second printing is finished since the publisher's warehouse has zero right now.

I posted over on the 2 B Read blog today. My topic is memorable lines--mostly in books, but I mentioned a couple of movie quotes too. I post here every day. I post on the Crimson City Blog every week. And yet I felt kind of nervous today posting on 2 B Read, wondering if what I wrote was interesting enough.

Last night's chat was fun! But I didn't get out of there until late and I'm having trouble moving this morning. I also had an icky dream last night. Not a nightmare, just...icky. Actually, I'm surprised I remember it since I usually have to be getting a lot of sleep, and I didn't last night.

Oh! I almost forgot about the ballgame last night! I didn't get to see much of it, just a half inning, but I'm hoping the Astros didn't get swept. It's not that I like the Astros, but the White Sox are the MN Twins' arch enemy and the Cubs don't like them either. Okay, I just saw the score. Darn it! The damn White Sox won the World Series. Bah!

The big question on my local RWA chapter's PAN loop is what would it take to get more members to participate. For me, the answer is TIME. I don't have any. I can't make it to meetings because if they're during working hours, I'm at the day job and if they're during the evenings or on the weekends, I have to write. Have to. Maybe if I were in a position to ditch the day job, or if I didn't continually have short deadlines, I could find a little time. But I do.

Take last night for example. My goal was to do a little writing and get to bed very early since I'm still not 100% well from when I was sick last week. How did I do?

Well, I opened my chapter, and realized I hadn't done a newsletter for October yet. I wanted to promote the chat the Crimson City writers are doing tonight at Romance Reviews Today, so I pretty much had to do it last night. This takes a while since I have to think about my news for the month and compose the items.

Next, I remembered I'm scheduled to post on the 2 B Read blog on Thursday. I have the bare bones of an entry, but it certainly had a lot of work left to do on it. Including research, and looking up a couple of links to insert. This took a couple of hours.

Then there was email. Tons and tons of email that had to be answered. Anything that could wait a day or two, I flagged and will try to tackle today or tomorrow. Also, there was a great post about Crimson Veil at the RBL Board that I needed to reply to. And there are a couple more posts over there that I need to try to answer this morning before I leave for work.

By the time I finished all these things, it was an hour later than the time I planned to go to sleep. Sigh. I need a clone or something.

One of my friends told me to drive traffic to my blog, I need to comment on other people's blogs. Great in theory, easy enough to do, right? It would be if I had a spare 5 minutes. I have time to read other people's blogs, but no time to comment. It's a matter of priorities. I could run around half the blogosphere commenting, but that doesn't get my next book written. Same thing with my local chapter's PAN group. I still haven't found time to comment on the email loop about why I don't participate much. It takes time to answer email, and so far, most loop email hasn't reached a high enough priority on my To Do List.

Some day, this won't be a problem. Some day, I'm going to make enough money writing to quit the day job and then I'll set aside a certain time each day to answer email, comment on blogs, write newsletters, and blog entries without it infringing on my writing time. That's the island this rat is swimming for. :-)

Overslept today. Again. I probably shouldn't have gone to a chat, but right to bed. I had run out of energy about a half hour before it started and catching up on sleep was probably my best option. It's not what I did, however, and after I hit the snooze, it was almost an hour before I heard the alarm come on. EEK!

I did finish the chapter I was working on yesterday, hurrah! Now if I could just figure out what the heck I want to do with the next chapter. I'm almost to the point where I know pretty much exactly how I want events to unfold, but I'm not quite there yet. :-(

Gotta run. Gah!

I did 11 pages yesterday before my brain shut down. The problem is that I went off on an unexpected tangent. Alex was supposed to woo Stacey. Of course, that isn't quite what happened. Don't know if what did happen works or if I'm going to have to delete 6 pages and start over.

The cough is better. Of course, better is relative. I'm still hacking pretty good, it's just not as long and as deep as it was over the weekend. I count this as a good thing.

In the Be Careful What You Wish For column, I finally got a third review on Amazon. Which managed to irritate me because she dinged me for having too much romance (GASP) in a book clearly labeled ROMANCE on the spine. Let me find a wall to bang my head against. That's like buying a mystery and then complaining because the characters spend too much time trying to figure out who the murderer is. Please.

I found this quiz when I visited Candice's blog.


.:Mercury:.

"Your personality often has two sides. You
have no trouble taking things in stride, but
you like a peaceful balance in your life. You
have a lot of creativity, especially when it
comes to the written word. You are a great
communicator and are very open to new ideas.
You also have a strong desire to learn."


. : : Which Astrological Planet are You? : : . [10 Gorgeous Pics!]
brought to you by Quizilla

Despite the charming hacking sounds that bronchitis brings, I managed to write yesterday. I finished one scene and wrote two others, which finished a chapter and started a new one. Hurrah! My goal for the day is to finish this new chapter. Unfortunately, it's a scene where Alex has to work on wooing Stacey. Alex is clueless on this wooing thing and he's not talking to me about what his plans are. My only option is to put him on the spot and hope he comes through for me.

I watched part of the World Series last night. It was a lesser of two evils thing, since I like neither Houston nor the White Sox. Between being a Twins fan and a Cubs fan, the White Sox are really not in favor here, so it was easy to figure out who to root against. :-) Hopefully, Houston will win tonight and even up the series.

I finished this post a while ago, but Blogger isn't letting me post. :-(

So Liz has a ton of reader reviews on Amazon for Crimson City. Marjorie has even more reader reviews on Amazon for A Taste of Crimson. And I only have two. People are reading my book, but no one feels strongly enough about it to write a review. Sigh.

I received my contracts today for the two books I sold. Last week. Holy Supersonic Speed, Batman! I've never had a contract show up in less than 6-8 weeks before this. I'm stunned in absolute amazement.

I'm rabid about not getting sick. I don't quite walk around in a plastic bubble, but if I could afford one and people wouldn't stare, I'd consider it. I used to get teased at work about my obsession, but I don't any more. Not once they saw that I was right on the money. You see, even a minor head cold, something no one else would even think twice about, can--and usually does--turn to bronchitis for me.

I thought I was going to get through this cold without it becoming the Big B. I'd started getting sick on Sunday, and here it was Thursday night and no coughing. My relief was premature. Friday the coughing began. More and more, that deep note that I refer to as the Bronchitis Hack started appearing. No, I screamed, not again! I have a deadline, I can't be sick right now! I've taken Echinacea. I've taken Vitamin C. I slept 13 hours last night. To no avail.

I'm hacking this morning.

Not good. I used to have some spare Z Packs that a friend had bought for me in Mexico, but I used those. My own supply is necessary because the last 2 times I went to the doctor, I had to argue with them to get antibiotics. With one, I even had to insist on a blood test to show my white blood cell count was high. It was. I got my antibiotics, but it's a PITA when you're sick to not only have to drive to the doctor's office, but to have to fight to get the necessary drugs to cure what's ailing you. Grrr.

So I'll wait till Monday--I should be good and sick then and they won't be so quick to argue with me--but this is not fun and puts me behind on my writing. I'm just mad as all get out at my body. Why can't the damn thing fight off the bacteria associated with bronchitis???

Anyway, I'm not a happy camper--which you might have guessed.

If you've read Ravyn's Flight you know Alex is very closed, afraid to risk himself. In the spin off book, he and Stacey are the secondary romance again and I've reached a point where he realizes he has to woo her if he wants to keep her. Only Alex doesn't woo. It's more like a siege. I just can't figure out what, exactly, he'd do--and he's not talking. Sigh.

The fourth book in the Crimson City series, Carolyn Jewel's A Darker Crimson, is shipping in 2-3 days on Barnes & Noble.com. Carolyn and I worked closely to coordinate the demon world. And while my Mika and Conor might be half human and half demon, Carolyn's story actually takes place in Orcus as the Bak-Faru (the nasty dark demons) continue trying to lower the veil. They really want to rule the human world as they once did.

I had to check that Waldenbooks list this morning to see if my book was still on there or if someone had realized yet that there was some kind of mistake. But nope, Crimson Veil is still on the Romance Bestseller List. This is definitely something I'm going to have to print out for the scrapbook.

Chat was fun last night, and thank goodness the few people there managed to come up with questions to fill the hour. That was a little humbling to see that almost no one was interested in me, so no one need worry about my getting a big ego from item one in the morning blog. ;-) Tired today, though, and I'm already thinking about taking a nap when I get home from work.

It should be quiet for part of the day--Mr. Congeniality is on vacation. I bet he forgot to put an away message on his phone, though, so that will be ringing off the hook. And then of course there's Loud Vendor Guy who will wheel in at some point today. He's a trial. Oh, well, at least I'm feeling a bit better. Don't think I can write yet, but probably tomorrow.

Well, if it weren't for the fashionable cam boot and the fact that my cold has me too congested to breathe, I'd be happy dog dancing around the room. Through a Crimson Veil is #7 on the Waldenbooks Romance Bestseller List! Whoo Hoo!!!!

The other 9 names are some pretty heavy hitters as far as romance authors go. I keep staring at my name up there with theirs and thinking someone's going to print a retraction soon. This is too incredible.

The builder dug a great big hole in the ground. It isn't too terribly exciting, but it's a start. They can't do anything more until the city comes out and inspects the footings--whatever those are. I'd always planned to actually do some research before building a house, read a few books, visit some websites, but now I won't have the chance. I'm too busy. I'm just trusting that everything is going to work out without my obsessing over it.

Got a much needed haircut yesterday, then I swung over to the mall and signed some more copies of Crimson Veil. Because it's a top seller at Waldenbooks, it's on that display at the front of the store. On the back side, and low so that it's difficult to see. Sigh. Yes, writers always find something to worry over. Or maybe that's just me.

I went to bed early last night, so if I can survive today, I think I'll be on the downside of this cold. I'm still drinking coffee and that's my bellwether. If the idea of coffee becomes repugnant, then I know I'm really sick. So far, so good.

Zero writing yesterday, but my brain wasn't clear enough. I did start looking at web designers. Again. This will be my third time through this process. The first time, I decided to take HTML classes and do my own site because the prices were too high. The second time through, I decided to continue doing my own site because the prices were too high, and I could do a better job than the designers that were affordable. This time through, I think I've picked a designer. I just have to debate whether or not I actually want to spend the money. I want something more polished than what I currently have. I think I could do it if I started from scratch and did a complete overhaul, but I just don't have the time. Still, it's hard to pay someone else. I love playing with web design, and if I wasn't writing, I'd be taking classes to become a real pro at it. This is something I'd enjoy doing professionally.

I don't know if I can come up with 10, not off the top of my head, but suggestions are welcome. These are things I learned the hard way, and some that I'm still struggling to overcome. But if you want to stay sane as a published author, these are good ideas.

The Ten Commandments For Newly Published Writers

1. Thou shalt not google thy name
2. Thou shalt not google thy book title
3. Thou shalt not check thy Amazon numbers every hour
4. Thou shalt not check thy BN.com numbers every hour
5. Thou shalt not lurk on message boards where books are discussed
6. Thou shalt not read reviews of thy book (unless vetted by trusted friends)
7. Thou shalt not compare thy career to that of other writers
8. Thou shalt not obsess over that which you have no control
   
9. Thou shalt not call Ingram for sales figures (at least not more than once a day)
10. Thou shalt not create a spreadsheet with sales figures

This might need some refinement, and I got a little repetitive in places to get 10, but you get the idea.

There just might be the teeniest, tiniest possibility that I have more than allergies. This is starting to feel an awful lot like a head cold.

Met with the builder this afternoon, and they're going to start digging the basement tomorrow. I'm semi-freaking out.

I never had allergies as a kid, or if I did, they were light enough that I never felt them, but in the last few years, I've been making up for that. I don't know what's floating in the air right now, but I've been miserable for about a week. Makes it hard to concentrate when you can't breathe. Gah!

Overall, though, despite feeling horrible, it was a pretty good weekend. I did 10 pages yesterday before my brain shut down, which is higher than my usual all day total by a couple of pages. It just wasn't as much as I wanted to get done. How'd I do 16 pages in a day that one weekend?

I also popped onto one of the few romance boards I still visit, the ReBeL readers (link in the sidebar), and found a great post about Crimson Veil! Hurrah! It's nice to see some feedback. I still only have two Amazon reviews, though, which is kind of giving me a complex. Writers. We'll always find something to be neurotic about. :-/

My busy week starts today. I meet with my builder this afternoon to make some "decisions." That sounds ominous, doesn't it? I mean, I don't have time to research anything so how will I know if I'm making the right choice?

Tuesday, I'm getting a haircut. I need it! And then swinging by the bookstore to sign stock. Hopefully, they'll have more than 2 books in since this is my area Waldenbooks.

Wednesday, I'm doing a chat for the FF&P chapter. I'm just hoping someone shows up so I'm not sitting there alone with the moderator.

The rest of the week is still free. Maybe I can actually get some writing done on Thursday and Friday. When did life get so darn busy???

PASIC (the Published Authors Special Interest Chapter) has started a blog! It's called 2 B Read and features posts from a slew of authors. It's just getting started, so it will continue to evolve and grow, but stop over and check it out. There are already a lot of posts.

Yesterday was a frustrating day. I worked really hard writing, and ended up with little production to show for it. I had a scene that really needed the motivation beefed up before the character's decision made sense. It added a grand total of one page, but took a lot longer to write than one page normally would.

Then there was the scene from hell. Sigh. I hate writing fight scenes. I had half of it written already, but the half I had left was the tough stuff--which was why I'd skipped ahead. It took me HOURS to finish the damn thing. I still think I might have to do some more work on it, but the bulk of it is down--finally. And I'm not planning on doing another one of those damn things until the climax of the book. I just loathe writing them, they're even harder than love scenes, which are also time consuming for me.

So, while I'm trying to choreograph this stupid fight, I cleaned. My bedroom had gotten out of control while I was laid up after surgery and I couldn't stand it any longer. Things look much better now and I'm happier. Not as happy as I could be since I only did the two worst surfaces, but there was a lot of crap piled on them that is now gone! Hurrah!

And I no longer have to give the MN weather report every morning. Weather Underground has little weather gizmos that can be loaded on a website and I loaded one onto the sidebar of my blog, right below the links. So now you'll always know the weather in the Twin Cities and the time the report was made. :-) Bet you're thrilled, yes? Where else but my blog can you find excitement like this?

So I found out yesterday that Crimson Veil was #11 on the Waldenbooks Bestselling Romance list. I have mixed emotions about this. On the one hand, I've never been this high before so it's kind of exciting. On the other hand, 11 doesn't sound that great. It's like when I was in high school, I was in the top 10.5% of my class. Being in the top 10 sounds better.

I guess, though, I should enjoy what I have, and I like to believe I'd be higher if people weren't having so much trouble finding the book. I keep hearing from all over the country that people can't find Crimson Veil despite searching multiple stores. These are readers who are willing to go that extra mile to find the book, so I can't help wondering how many casual readers I lost. The ones that aren't going to waste time tracking it down, and if they can't find it in the store, they'll just pick up the new Nora and call it done. Very frustrating since there's nothing I can do about it.

Seriously, I am trying to enjoy this. I've been reminded several times this week by different people that there are writers who would kill to be where I'm at. And I know they're right, that I can't expect to have this instant success that a few writers have managed to achieve, but....

There's always that little voice in the background saying "but." It's insidious. It undermines your confidence. It makes you doubt your ability. It makes you doubt yourself at the very core.

Maybe this little voice is what spurs us on. Maybe. But maybe this little voice is the same thing that stresses writers out, or causes them enough despair to quit. I've already made my decision. I'm not quitting, but I worry about other writers, especially unpublished writers who listen to that little voice. "Fall down seven times, get up eight." That Japanese proverb is my mantra, and I pass it on all the time.

Writing is hard. It's lonely. And anyone who thinks all their troubles are over once they're published is fooling themselves. Maybe this blog will show that if nothing else. Warning: Once published you keep your old neuroses and add new ones. Do published writers tell other writers this? Maybe they do. I always knew that selling wasn't some magical elixir, but I figured I'd get rid of my old worries of inadequacy and replace them with new concerns. I never planned on keeping the old baggage.

I'm lucky. I have good friends who support me when I'm freaking out. Who cheer about the good news and get angry on my behalf when others are poking at me. At the end of the day, I think having the friendships matter more than the numbers. People are important. Everything else is transitory.

MN Weather Report: 45 degrees.

I am wearing ear muffs--that's what the ear protection the guys who work on the RAMP with JET ENGINE NOISE wear to protect their hearing. Loud Vendor Guy projects at such a volume that I can hear him through the ear muffs with a set of foam ear plugs shoved in my ears in addition to them.

I swear to God, he deliberately waited until I started trying to write at lunch to pick up the phone and blather on. How can any human being be THIS loud??? OMG! I need my lunch hour to write, not listen to Loud Vendor Guy come up with plans to screw NWA. Grrr.

First, thanks to Nicole, I know that I'm not the book bitch. Yea! I feel much better now. I felt I needed to put this retraction up front. Blame it on my need for fairness.

Now on to the regularly scheduled ramble. I stayed up till about 11pm Wednesday night to write. My production fell off as I became more tired, but I was determined. After all, I did this when I wrote Power of Two, there should be no problem doing it now. Ha! Yesterday, I almost fell asleep during lunch. Writing production wasn't as good as it would have been if I'd gone to bed a couple hours later. Sigh. My biggest problem, I've decided, is my internal editor. I fuss with sentences and paragraphs until I'm happy with them, when I know I'll have to go back and revise later anyway. Need to work on this. Anyone have suggestions on how to turn that part of my brain off?

They break ground on the house I'm building next week. I figure between all the demands on my time the builder is going to make, three deadlines, revisions, promotion, and the day job, I should be quite insane in about 14 months. Actually, I'm questioning my sanity right now, but I know I'll be happy when the house is done.

MN Weather Report: 49 degrees.

I was looking at my website stats, and I noticed some hits from a bulletin board. I went over to check it out. Turns out it's some site for soap makers, but they also have a topic heading for contests. In the side where it lists the most recent post was "The Book Bitch October Book Giveaway." (or something like that) I didn't click on it to check, but I'm guessing I'm the Book Bitch. I was determined not to let this bother me, but it does. Part of me is tempted to post and say:

Dear Soap Makers,

The book bitch put up the exhausting list of rules because the last time she ran a contest, a sweepstakes site posted the answer to the question on their website and hundreds of people copied the answer and inundated her. The book bitch changed the question more than a half a dozen times, but alas, the sweepstakes people insisted on cheating time and again. So, the book bitch was determined to spell out for the sweepstakes people that cheating would not be tolerated. The book bitch asks you to consider how you would feel if you visited, read the excerpt, answered the question, and then an hour later, someone posted the answer on a bulletin board and hundreds of other people who did not follow the rules as you did, entered. How would you feel if one of those people won when you played fair and square? The book bitch is big on fairness. She's just funny that way.

Love and kisses,
The Book Bitch

PS. If anyone visits the site, I do not want to know if I am the book bitch. Being only 99% sure is a comfort. If it's not me, then I would like to know. :-)

Yesterday, I accepted an offer from Tor to write two books for their paranormal romance line! I've been happy dog dancing. :-) This is the book that I want to write every time I look out the window at work and see the cemetery.

My agent asked me to come up with a one sentence blurb for her, so I dusted off my degree in advertising copywriting, and came up with this:

When a troubleshooter for a society of magic users rescues a private investigator from a dark spell, she finds more than an ally as she faces down her former mentor IN THE MIDNIGHT HOUR.

In the Midnight Hour is the working title. I'm awful at titling books, but Billy Idol came on the radio as I was desperately trying to come up with something, and there you go.

Anyway, I'm going to be incredibly busy the next 14 months. I have a book due Dec 1 for Love Spell, I'm supposed to be building a house and have to meet with the builder next week to make some decisions, and now I have 2 new books to write before Jan 07. I like being busy with the writing, but I do wish the house thing was done.

MN Weather Report: 56 degrees. Fog.

I did an interview about Through a Crimson Veil for Revision 14. If you'd like to read it, Click Here. And after you're done, check out the rest of the site. There's some really cool stuff there!

Apparently, Mr. Congeniality is counting how many times I go to the bathroom at work. Can you hear me screaming??? He actually said to me, you're really logging the miles today. I was like, huh? Yes, I'd made one extra trip to the bathroom that morning, and he had to comment on it. This makes me uncomfortable to say the least. I don't want some guy I work with monitoring how many trips I make to the ladies' room. I'm trying to think how I can avoid him noticing, but I'm not sure I can. His cube is right next to mine, and since I'm still confined to the fashionable cam boot for at least another three weeks, I can't sneak out the opposite direction. The velcro makes a little noise every time I take a step.

I've made smashing progress on my To Do List, which is a huge relief. I'm down to one thing I need to write, three things I need to do (none of which are that difficult, just a little time consuming), and a list of appointments. I'm almost finished with an interview I've done for a local paper--I just need to reread what I wrote and have it proofed--and then that will be finished too. I love crossing items off my list!

On the minus side of the ledger, I'm hearing from people who can't find Crimson Veil in their area. So far I've heard from Northern California, San Diego, Southern Illinois, and Northern Florida. I also had a friend who went to one of the local malls and that bookstore didn't have TACV either, so she had to go to Barnes & Noble at another mall. I'm about ready to freak out, thinking my book is sitting in a warehouse somewhere, unshipped. Gah! Writers should just be able to write without worrying about all this other stuff.

MN Weather Report: 55 degrees.

Have I mentioned how much I hate writing fight scenes? The choreography is excruciating. Yet because I write Action Romance, I'm doing several scenes like this in each book. If I can get through this one, though, I think I'm clear until the climax of the story--where I'll need at least two scenes like this (or possibly three depending on how the bad guys split up.)

I wrote about half the scene on Sunday, which slowed my production considerably, but yesterday, I was just too darn tired. I ended up writing something like "more fight stuff here" and then continued on to what happens next.

This morning is going to be rushed. I overslept. Again. On the plus side, however, the damn Yankees were eliminated from the playoffs last night. Hurrah!

MN Weather Report: 43 degrees.

And my streak of the teams I like losing, continues. The Angels lost last night forcing a game 5. Sigh. It's already going to hurt to pick between Houston and St. Louis--I loathe both teams--and I don't want to have to choose between the Yankees and the White Sox too. This could end up being my worst post season in years. :-(

Writing went okay this weekend. I was more back to my usual production levels--8 pages each day. Wish I could have had another weekend like the one before where I had double that, but it didn't work that way. On my point of view dilemma, I decided that I'd never pulled my punches before, and I wasn't going to start now. The hero broke the guy's neck and he's now fighting bad guy number 2. Fight scenes are slow for me to write, so that's part of why only 8 pages.

I have a chat tonight at Writerspace. I'll be talking about Crimson Veil and anything else people would like to ask questions about at 9pm eastern time.

MN Weather Report: 42 degrees. Wind Chill: 40 degrees.

The Atlanta Braves have this horrible habit of choking in the playoffs, and once again, they've snatched possible defeat from the jaws of almost certain victory. Rooting for this team is almost as painful as being a Minnesota Vikings' fan.

In other baseball news, the Padres were eliminated last night which takes out the second of the four teams I wanted to see win. San Diego only made it to the playoffs because the NL West was a horrible division, so it isn't a surprise to see the Cardinals take them out. I was hoping, though, because I loathe the STL team.

If this keeps up, I'm going to be rooting for the teams I hate the least. Not a fun post season then. Sigh.

Edited to add: Atlanta chokes again in 17 innings. They should have won it, though, in 9, but they gave up FIVE RUNS! Now three of the four teams I want to win are out of the running to be World Series Champs. Arrgghhhhh!!! Come on Angels. At least let me have one team I like playing!

After I went to bed last night, I started thinking about Point of View (POV) in the next scene I need to write. My original thought was to be in Kendall's POV while Wyatt went off and took out two bad guys. Then I thought, well, it would kind of be more exciting to be in his POV for this scene. After all, he's the one doing the fighting while he leaves Kendall behind. Then I started thinking some more. Wyatt's going to kill these guys. Do readers really want to read about the hero sneaking up on a guy, snapping his neck and then fighting the other guy to the death? It is a romance.

My next thought was that maybe there's some way to avoid showing Wyatt killing this guy who doesn't even realize he's there until it's too late. Maybe have him grab the guy, the other bad guy fires his weapon, but Wyatt uses him as a shield and Bad Guy #2 kills his partner. But then I started thinking about bullet calibers and wondering if Army issued pistols would be small enough to keep the bullet in the Bad Guy #1's body. It doesn't do me any good if the caliber is so big that the bullet goes out the bad guy's back and into Wyatt. This answer to my problem is going to take research, and I'm not sure it's the right way to go anyhow.

Wyatt is Army Special Operations. He is in a situation where he absolutely has no qualms about sneaking up on the bad guys and killing one of them before the man knows he's there. To be honest, this is how I want to write the scene. I'm just concerned about reaction from readers, you know, feeling this is unheroic. Anyone have an opinion?

MN Weather: 43 degrees. Wind Chill: 38 degrees.

The Red Sox were eliminated from the playoffs yesterday. This is one of the teams I was rooting for to advance. Not that I'm a huge Red Sox fan, it's more that I loathe the White Sox, their opponent. They are one of the MN Twins' archenemies. This doesn't bode well for the San Diego Padres to win today. Again, it's not that I'm a huge Padres fan. The Cardinals are the Cubs' archenemy. :-)

I love baseball! And playoffs are so much fun!

On the writing front, I deleted everything I wrote in this scene I'm working on (the second time I've done this), and changed point of view. I'm hoping by going into Wyatt's head, it'll be more interesting. Kendall just wasn't working for me. It's too soon to tell, but hopefully, this will work.

Also, funny thing, I realized something about Kendall this week. She doesn't think she's good enough for Wyatt. (She hasn't figured out that she feels this way yet.) So I mention this to my two writing buddies, and they're both like, yeah, we know. You've been layering this in from the beginning. I'm like, whoa! I wish someone had told me because I didn't know. I get my information from the characters, and Kendall is still ignorant of this, so it was like a huge revelation to me--something I figured out from things she's let slip the last couple of weeks.

I need to get writing.

MN Weather Report: 48 degrees.

My local chapter, Midwest Fiction Writers, is meeting this Saturday and I really want to go. Not only are we voting on our updated bylaws, but an FBI agent is coming in to talk to us about his job and we'd get to ask all kinds of questions. Not that I have any ideas that involve the FBI, but this promises to be an interesting program and I want to hear it.

The problem? Well, I need to write this weekend, and I really can't afford to lose a whole Saturday in October, when I'll for sure lose the Saturday we meet in November. I'm doing Journey of a Novel at that meeting. I'm guessing I'll be good tomorrow and stay home. After all, I haven't even taken the time to get my hair cut.

In a related note, I received my chapter newsletter yesterday. I usually get a PDF version through email, so getting a paper copy at my PO box was a surprise, but there's a really nice review of Crimson Veil in the Book Buddy segment. I'll have to try and remember to send a thank you. (Someone remind me to add this to my To Do List, which is at work.)

Also read an agent blog yesterday that was talking about dedications. This is the second time from two different agents that I read about thanking your agent in the book dedication. This agent referred to not being mentioned as a snub. That immediately made me feel bad, because I haven't thanked my agent in the dedication yet. I surely didn't mean it as a snub. My agent is a Godsend! I didn't know there was protocol for this. Will someone please write The Newly Sold Author's Guide to the Publishing Industry? Or The Idiot's Guide to Publishing Protocol? Clearly, I need it.

I tried to watch Night Stalker again last night, but found myself bored enough to go back to the baseball game. Atlanta beat Houston. Hurrah! The teams I'm rooting for in the playoffs haven't been doing too well. So far Atlanta has won one and the Angels have won one, otherwise my teams are losing every game. I think I'm going to get emails saying "get off our side" pretty soon.

MN Weather Report: 37 degrees Wind Chill: 33 degrees.

Well, I tried to rewrite my scene yesterday using my friend's suggestion and it wasn't working for me. Maybe it was how tired I was--I can't seem to get enough sleep right now--but it just seemed as if the original version of the scene resonated better for me. I thought about it some last night before I fell asleep, but didn't last long enough to come up with any conclusive answers. I'll give it some more thought, but in the meantime, I'm moving on to the next scene.

I don't think I've mentioned Loud Vendor Guy in a while, have I? He's this outside vendor that has a cube in our building about two cubes away from me. He's incredibly loud--unbearably so--and I've been asking my tech writers to get me a pair of ear muffs. (like the kind the guys on the ramp wear when they're working around the loud jet engines.) So one of my guys came through for me. Hurrah! Now, I thought, I can put them on and not hear a word loud vendor guy says--after all, these ear muffs block JET noise and we know how loud that can be.

At lunch this week, I've put in my foam ear plugs, then put the ear muffs over that. And guess what? I can still hear Loud Vendor Guy. THROUGH THE EAR MUFFS! Which essentially means he's louder than a jet engine. Gah! No wonder I can't write during lunch at work. Who can concentrate with that decibal level???

MN Weather Report: 42 degrees Wind Chill: 34 degrees.

I had a quick conversation with a friend last night. She was helping me come up with an idea for a guest blog I'm supposed to do this week. After we finished talking about that, I started complaining about the scene I'm working on. I cut everything I'd written. "All Kendall does is think," I said. Now granted, it's time for her to figure a few things out, so I guess thinking is required, but I can present it better. Then I made the mistake of talking about the first scene in the chapter. "And Alex is talking. Talk, talk, talk. Think, think, think," I told her. "Blah!"

Then she made a scathingly brilliant suggestion. One that requires dumping most of the 11 pages I've written in this chapter and redoing them. 11 out of the 31 pages I wrote this weekend. Dumped. Cut. Gone! But damn it, her idea is brilliant. So when I get home from work today, I will jettison my 11 pages and redo the scene. Whimpering all the time about how this sets me back on my page count.

MN Weather Report: 67 degrees. Temperatures plummeting throughout the day.

When I was a kid, one of the books I loved was called, "From the Mixed Up Files of Mrs. Basil E. Frankweiler." It was about a brother and sister who run away from home and live in a museum. While they're hiding there, a statue comes in that may or may not have been created by Michelangelo, and Claudia finds herself drawn into the mystery, trying to discover the truth. She ends up paying a visit to Mrs. Basil E. Frankweiler who donated the piece and the woman gives her and her brother a limited amount of time to search her files and discover whether Michelangelo really created the masterpiece or not. But the trick is that the files aren't organized in what most people would consider a logical method. In the book, Claudia tells her brother something like, five minutes of planning equals hours of searching.

You're probably wondering why I'm talking about this book. It's that last line about the short time planning being worth hours of work. That's what I'm doing today with TOD. Instead of dragging a laptop to work, I'm taking a pad of paper, and I'm going to figure out what I need to accomplish as far as the characters and the plot between where I am now and the end of the book. I'm thinking this will help me focus my scenes and save me some meandering writing that I'll end up cutting anyway.

I didn't get much accomplished yesterday on TOD, but then I didn't expect to. Mondays are rough days for me. I fell asleep for an hour and woke up groggy. And of course, I got a second wind right around 8pm which means I feel zombie-like today.

Through a Crimson Veil received two more reviews yesterday! The first link I was sent was from Paranormal Romance Writers. The reviewer said:

"Through a Crimson Veil," written by Patti O'Shea and published by Lovespell, is a thrilling and imaginative paranormal fantasy.

The second review link is from Fallen Angel Reviews. Crimson Veil received 5 Angels and was named a Recommended Read. Yea! The reviewer had a lot of great things to say, including:

Ms. O'Shea takes on the intricate world of the demons, Orcus. The amazing culture that she has brought to life in Through a Crimson Veil is nothing short of awesome. The different castes of demons and the powers they have are so detailed that it was scarily believable. To be able to take an unbelievable concept and imbue it with such detail that it becomes 'real' is a true show of talent that ensures I will always look for Patti O'Shea's books.

How cool is this?

MN Weather Report: 76 degrees. Humid.

I get some of my best ideas while I'm lying in bed, half awake. Like on Saturday night, I figured out how I wanted to end the chapter I was working on. Or Sunday morning when I came up with what I wanted to do in both scenes in the next chapter. I got up early on Sunday, had coffee and got to work writing the final 5 pages. Hurrah! I took a shower, returned to the keyboard and prepared to work on the next. Only my memory of what I'd decided to do was gone. Completely, totally, utterly gone!

I tried laying down, closing my eyes and thinking about both scenes. Nothing came to me. I screwed around for a little while since I didn't have a clue any longer what I wanted to do next. I meditated. I tried writing a little bit. Nothing. Nada. Zip.

It was very frustrating. I did some more thinking, came up with something else I could write. It wasn't my original idea, but that wasn't going to come back to me. I did manage to write the whole scene. When I have some time, I'll have to reread and see if it's okay.

Total production for the day despite the severe memory lapse was an impressive 16+ pages. Like I said yesterday morning, 8 pages is normally a good day for me, so I'm excited about this!

Now I'm tired. Well, I'm always tired when I have to get up at 4am, but this is a different kind of tired than usual. I don't mind. Not really. But it sure would be nice to stay home and keep writing.

MN Weather Report: 75 degrees. Humid.

I wrote 15+ pages yesterday. Whoo hoo!!!! That's a lot for me. Usually, a good day is about 8 pages, so I'm practically turning flips. Of course, I haven't reread what I wrote yet, so the celebration may be premature. One drawback is that the dream scene ended up being way longer than I wanted. Those damn italics. But I need those pages. I think. Sigh.

I had such a good day, I was eager to get up today and write some more. I think I know how I want to close out the chapter and some of the stuff I want to do in the next scene/chapter. Hopefully, it'll work.

I found another review for Through a Crimson Veil last night. I've been trying to remember everyone I queried about reading it, and then when a site name comes to me, I've been checking it out. This latest is from A Romance Review:

Patti O'Shea proves once again why her books are some of the most highly anticipated of the year.

and:

Crimson City comes alive through the words of Patti O'Shea. Her fast paced and realistic story of demons and their presence in the world brings chills to the reader's spine.

So this is cool!

And so far, I have been really good! I haven't visited any sites where people discuss books and I haven't run a search for my book title or my name in about a week. :-) Who says obsessive/compulsive people can't be retrained? It hasn't been easy, but I know I don't want to read negative stuff. It just shuts off my creativity faster than flipping a switch, and it wounds the soul. This is definitely a case where ignorance is bliss. I'll just have to count on my friends to send me the good stuff.

MN Weather Report: 64 degrees.

I meant to post this earlier this week, but I got sidetracked. :-) What can I say? I frequently find myself going off on a different path than I intended.

Anyway, this is from a review of Through a Crimson Veil up at The Romance Readers Connection.

Ms. O'Shea writes a compelling story. The reader will be enthralled with the characters of Conor and Mika. Their story is intense, but offers a heartwarming love story.

I love it when people love my characters because they're my favorite part about writing. I can hear them so clearly in my head, know a billion things about them that never makes it in the book. They just fascinate me.

I'm having trouble with my neck and hands today. I get this off and on, but it's been horrible this morning. The muscles in my neck get so stiff that it must pinch nerves and then my hands fall asleep. Makes it a bitch to do anything on the computer, but usually a few minutes of stretching out takes care of it. So far this morning, I haven't been able to shake it for too long. I told my body to toughen the hell up--we have writing to do today. So far it's ignoring me. :-( Maybe a hot shower and some Advil will loosen the tension.

To Do List Items Accomplished: 0. Added: 1. (I'm going backward!)
MN Weather Report: 62 degrees.