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Archive for February, 2007

I Totally Support Hibernation

Wednesday, February 28th, 2007

You should see how high the snow is piled in the parking lot at the EDJ! (Evil Day Job) It’s taking up a huge amount of space and it’s towering as it is. The news also showed the places where MNDOT drops the snow they’ve pulled from the freeways and those lots are piled high from last weekend’s storm too. And here comes another one. Sigh. We’re under a winter storm warning from noon today until 6pm on Friday. Why can’t these storms move out faster? Anyway, we’re due for another 10-15 inches. Do you see me smiling? No? It’s because I’m not! Argh!

I more or less missed out on the last storm because it hit on the weekend and I was off from the EDJ the Monday afterward, but I’m not so lucky this time. I think I said this before, but it’s worth repeating–bears have the right idea. Go to sleep and wake up when winter is over. Hibernation is a good thing!

I’m still behind on everything and I didn’t even attempt to answer email yesterday. Instead, I went to bed before 8pm. Oooh, the exciting life of an author! But I was so tired, I was absolutely worthless yesterday.

Speaking of author stuff, I made a copy of my galley for my mom to proof read for me. This should be interesting since it’s the darkest book I’ve written. Oh, well, if she could proof the novella for me, she’ll survive this too. So far, I’ve discovered my name spelled wrong on the copyright page and I’m totally wondering how the publisher got the quotes they used. Well, one of them anyway. They quoted stuff from an another author on my first book, Ravyn’s Flight, that I didn’t excerpt on my website. I checked. In fact, to check the accuracy of the quote, I had to search the archives of one of the Yahoo Groups I belong to. Weird. The only thing I can think of is that after I asked that author for permission, I forwarded the notes to my first publisher who passed it along to the second. It’s a mystery.

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Falling Into the Story

Tuesday, February 27th, 2007

My galleys for In the Midnight Hour arrived yesterday. The galleys are test printing of the book that need to be proofed for accuracy. I swore to myself that I wasn’t going to read them last night. I put them in my bag to take to the EDJ (Evil Day Job) and did other stuff last night. But at 9pm, when I should have been on my way to bed, I caved. I couldn’t help myself.

Part of it is that this is probably my favorite stage in the process. All the hard work is done, and while proofing takes a lot of concentration, it’s all left-brained stuff. Besides, this is when it really feels like a book and not just one of my stories. I wonder if other published authors feel this way or if it’s just me? I’m the one who walked around with my first book for two weeks after it came out because I couldn’t believe it was real.

The other part of it is that I really like this book and these characters. I love all my stories and all my heroes and heroines, of course, but Ryne and Deke just a tad more than usual right now. Maybe it’s because it took me so long to sell this story and I wrote two others in the meantime. I’d look out the window at the EDJ, see the cemetery where the opening chapter takes place, and long to write this book. Of course, I’ve been asked which book is my favorite and my answer always is the last one that I’ve finished. It’s fresh in my mind, and like I said earlier, the hard work is done.

Whatever the reason, though, I caved in and picked up the galleys last night. I just wanted to check out one of the quotes the publisher used on the opening page, since I’d just checked out the source and I wanted to make sure it was right. And since I had the galley out, I thought I’d check out a couple of my favorite spots. Just real quickly.

I ended up reading pretty much the entire thing. At least all the character stuff. I did skip the action scenes. My weakness is the h/h and how they interact with each other. That’s my absolute favorite part of writing. And I love how Ryne and Deke do it. They’re just so, well, cute together. (And I say that about all my h/h, but then they always seem to fit each other perfectly. I figure I can say that since they come in as fully formed people and I have nothing to do with it.)

So it was after midnight when I put the galley back in my tote bag and I had to get up this morning at 4am. I’m dying here and it isn’t helping any to remind myself it was self-inflicted.

It also doesn’t help to think that if I was going to stay up that late, there were a million other more pressing things I should have been doing. Starting with writing the WIP and ending with the billion and a half emails and MySpace messages I need to reply to and/or write. Gah! I’ve reached the point where I whimper when I see I have new notes because it’s just overwhelming right now.

Tags: galleys, midnight_hour, publishing
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Oscar Talk–Mostly

Monday, February 26th, 2007

I watched the tail end of the Oscars last night. I didn’t realize they were on. Yes, apparently it is possible to miss all the hype if you’re not paying attention and don’t watch much television. In my defense, though, I thought the Academy Awards were always on in March. Am I remembering wrong?

I was getting impatient toward the end–it’s like this epic performance that never ends. It was nearly 11pm and I was getting ready for bed, but since it was so close to the end, I wanted to see the award for best picture. Then I started thinking, you know, as bad as it is to watch these things at home, can you imagine sitting in the audience? I was in my jammies and sitting on the bed for the last 20 minutes, but can you imagine wearing a full-length evening gown, putting on makeup, doing your hair, wearing all that jewelry and being held prisoner in the auditorium for 4 1/2 hours? Gah!

Anyhow, The Departed won for Best Picture. I don’t know anything about this movie, but I’m going to check it and the other finalists out and see if any of them are something I’d like to rent.

One of the coolest things was that screen where those tumblers or acrobats or whoever they were made silhouettes of movies. I only saw two because I came in so late, Snakes on a Plane and The Departed. As always, I thought the thank yous went on too long. I flipped away when that went on and watched snow coverage on the local news.

My favorite part of the awards is seeing all the actresses in their dresses. If I hadn’t been busy writing all day (and if I’d realized the Oscars were on this weekend), I would have tuned in to watch one of the red carpet shows so I could see more of them than just what the presenters were wearing. If I finish writing early enough today (please God!), maybe I can watch the Fashion Police. Although, I must confess, they’ve raved about some dresses I thought were hideous.

Tomorrow it’s back to the EDJ (Evil Day Job). And it’s snowing–still or again, I’m not sure which. I had someone plow out my driveway for me, but my dad came over, wasn’t happy with it and cleaned out the driveway some more.

There isn’t much else to say. I worked all day, but didn’t get as much done as I’d hoped. That would be the sentence that sums up my 4 day weekend. But from the beginning, I’ve fought for every word in this story.

Tags: movies, snow
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In the Midnight Hour

Sunday, February 25th, 2007

Bonus post this morning!

In the Midnight Hour is up for preorder at Amazon.com now! This is really early–I didn’t expect to see it for another 2 or 3 weeks. You know, this is my fifth book (sixth if you count the Crimson anthology) and I’m almost as excited about this one as I was with my first book. Maybe because ITMH was a story I was absolutely compelled to tell and I consider it the second book of my heart.

In other news, we received about 10-11 inches of snow so far according to The Weather Channel. It’s difficult to tell from my window because it was so fiercely windy all day yesterday, that the snow blew around and it’s drifted. In some areas I can see almost bare grass, in others, it looks as if it’s up to my hips. My neighbor was out snowblowing his driveway before 8am this morning. Good thing I was up already! Snowblowers can be loud.

These pictures are of my backyard as taken from either my patio doors or my bedroom.

This is Saturday evening around 5pm or so.

This shot is about the same time on Saturday night, but taken from my bedroom window.

All these pictures are from Sunday morning. I don’t know if you can see how the snow drifted in front of the evergreens or not, but it’s really piled up back there.

It even drifted on the deck. It’s not very deep here because the wind kept blowing it to the ground, but I thought the small drift was indicative of the larger drifting that went on.

We’re not through yet! They’re saying another 2-4 inches today with another inch overnight. I hope they’re wrong; we’ve got more than enough!

Tags: midnight_hour, weather
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The Producers

Sunday, February 25th, 2007

This post for movie review Sunday is going to be really short. Last night’s film was The Producers starring Matthew Broderick (Leo Bloom) and Nathan Lane (Max Bialystock).

Leo Bloom goes to the offices of Max Bialystock in his job as an accountant. While he’s looking at the books, he makes an offhand comment about how a losing Broadway show could make more money for the producer than a hit. Although it’s illegal, Max tries to talk Leo into joining him in a scheme to do just that. Leo refuses, but when he returns to his EDJ (Evil Day Job), he reconsiders. The two then set out to find the worst play ever (Springtime for Hitler), hire the worst director and cast the worst actors. There’s no way their scheme could fail. Unless people love the play.

This movie is from 2005, long enough ago that if I’d heard Mel Brooks was involved in it, I’d forgotten. If I had remembered, I would have stayed away from the film. Probably. I might have given it a shot since it did so well on Broadway. Anyway, I’m not a Mel Brooks fan. I’ve tried. With one exception (Spaceballs), I just plain don’t find him funny. Unfortunately for me, The Producers evoked a typical reaction from me when it comes to Mel Brooks: excruciating boredom.

I sat through this whole movie. I don’t know why. Maybe because I kept expecting it to get better. IMO, it didn’t. I wandered away from the screen several times. Toward the end, after the you-know-what hit the fan, I actually said out loud, “How much longer is this thing going to last?” That’s never a positive sign. Neither is lamenting the day when movies used to be 90 minutes and not a horrible 135 minutes.

If you normally enjoy Mel Brooks, you’ll probably like this movie. If he’s not your cup of tea, you’ll be like me, bored stiff. My one consolation is that I did not pay theater ticket prices to see this on Broadway.

My rating: 1 star.

Tags: movies, reviews
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Whose Book Is It Anyway?

Saturday, February 24th, 2007

Yesterday was a hugely frustrating day. I spun my wheels until I was ready to scream. Since the scene wasn’t working in Creed’s POV, I switched back to Maia. This was better–for a little while–but it didn’t take long until I was fighting for every word again. Finally, late in the evening, it dawned on me that the problem was that I was trying to force one of my characters to do something he or she wouldn’t do.

I’ve mentioned here before that almost every time I get stuck like this it’s because I’m trying to do things my way instead of the way my h/h want to go. They’re endlessly aggravating, but they end up being right. That, of course, is even more aggravating because they’re always smug. Seriously, I need to have the kind of control over the characters that other authors do. I mean some of them even get to name their hero and heroine! Mine? They tell me what their names are and all the begging and pleading in the world won’t get them to change them.

Take Ryne, for example, the heroine from In the Midnight Hour. She told me her name began with an R, but wouldn’t give me more than that. I started looking through the girl’s sections of my baby name books. None of those R names would work for her. I found a few that seemed almost right, but would she go for one of those? Of course not. I swear I was on like my ninth baby name book when I finally found Ryne and she said, “that’s it.” You know why only one baby name book had Ryne listed in the girl’s section? Because Ryne is predominantly a boy’s name. Did that faze her? Nope. She was Ryne, period. No discussion allowed.

Or how about Conor from Through a Crimson Veil. At least his name is normal, but he insisted on spelling it with one N, and up till then, I’d only seen it spelled with two Ns. I figured that was minor since I’ve had characters who pronounce their names differently than everyone else would say them. Like Mika, Conor’s heroine. It’s not Mee-ka. She pronounces it Mike-ah. (I found out later, BTW, that Conor is an Irish spelling. I found that very interesting.)

And for a proposal I need to work on after I finish the Book From Hell, I have a heroine named Sasha. Sasha! I don’t write heroines called Sasha for heaven’s sake! I don’t know why I wasted the energy trying to get her to change her mind. It was a futile effort and I will be revising a proposal with a blond-haired heroine who goes by Sasha.

Then there are the characters who take over a complete book. Eternal Nights was supposed to be Stacey and Alex’s story, but Wyatt and Kendall showed up and it became their book and Alex and Stacey were relegated to secondary characters again. I had no say in this.

Anyway, back to the Book From Hell. So I reread what I had, figured out that while Creed doesn’t waste words, he’s not as straightforward as I had him acting in the scene and I cut that part. I also found a place where I cut away from the conversation between him and Maia too quickly and I went back to flesh that out. It seems to be going better, but I won’t know for sure until I get this chapter finished.

Tags: characters, pov, WIP
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Interesting Items in the News

Friday, February 23rd, 2007

I read a really interesting article this morning about solar power in the Telegraph. I’m pretty sure it’s the London Telegraph, but since it doesn’t specify the city, I’m erring on the side of caution. The part I found particularly fascinating was that new technology is emerging in this area so quickly, that the people interviewed believe solar power will be cheap enough within five years to compete with our current modes of energy.

Someone in the article is even quoted as saying that they don’t need subsidies, that all they need is for the governments around the world to do “no harm.” Which of course, got my brain swirling with potential story ideas. What can I say? It’s the hazard of being a writer. Anything and everything can spark the imagination.

I also saw a report on the TV about organic fruits and vegetables. I watched it on the web. (Have I mentioned I love having a high-speed connection?) This story talked about how expensive organic produce ran and what you should buy organic and what was okay to buy “regular.”

There are some fruits and vegetables that have pesticide residue even after repeated washings, and according to the report, these are the “dirty dozen” that you’d be better off buying organic:

Apples, bell peppers, celery, imported grapes, peaches, nectarines, pears, potatoes, red raspberries, spinach, cherries and strawberries.

Merely buying organic for these items can cut your pesticide intake by 90%. Now, isn’t that reassuring? Gah! After reading this, I shudder when I think of all the apples I’ve eaten.

Here’s the list of produce that are the most consistently clean:

Asparagus, avocados, bananas, broccoli, cauliflower, sweet corn, kiwi, onion, pineapple, and sweet peas.

No new story ideas from this, however, I did find it interesting. Pesticides, genetic engineering, hormones, and other crap like this in the food supply worries me, but with organics so expensive, it’s nice to know what I can skip spending extra on.

I think I’ll quit here because the other item that interests me is the snowstorm from hell that’s supposed to hit the Twin Cities today. And while I’m from Minnesota and there’s nothing we love better than to talk about the weather, I know it bores people from other states. Y’all don’t know what you’re missing, though. We can have twenty minute conversations with complete strangers and there’s never an awkwardness as we search for a topic.

Tags: nature, news, weather, winter
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Let’s Do the Time Warp Again

Thursday, February 22nd, 2007

That weird time inversion thing is happening again this morning. Somehow it’s 4:45 already and I’m just getting around to posting. Hmm. It must be time travel. Now if I could only learn to harness my super power.

I was working on a scene yesterday and it was like I’d hit a dead end. I was sputtering, trying to find a way to get the momentum back and I reached a conclusion. I needed to change point of view to my hero. I considered that for a while and decided I was right about that. Maia is shocked, stunned and not moving the scene forward anymore. The problem is that Creed barely dribbles information to me. Working with him is torture because of how reticent he is and how hard I have to push him to get anything. After the last time I was in his head, I swore I was sticking with Maia for the foreseeable future.

Last night, though, I cut the stuff in Maia’s head that wasn’t working, ended the scene and started a new one with Creed. And as I expected, I’m dragging it out of him. You know, he’s the least communicative hero I’ve ever had. Ever. I’m starting to get an inkling of how frustrated women get when their husbands won’t talk to them.

I’m off from the EDJ (Evil Day Job) on Friday and Monday and I plan to get a lot of hours in on the book. If the glimmer I’m getting of the next chapter pans out, I’ll be in Creed’s head some more. Oh, joy.

Tags: characters, WIP
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More Garage Door Adventures

Wednesday, February 21st, 2007

Whew! I’ve finally fulfilled all my judging responsibilities and I can now return to writing on my lunch hour. I wasn’t sure I was going to make the deadline without a huge push, but I have almost 2 weeks to spare.

I had more garage door adventures yesterday morning. I hit the button and the door went up 6, maybe 8 inches, and stopped. I put it down again, gave the spot that had stuck before a kick–hey! it worked last time–and tried to open the door again. Nope. This time, I frantically grabbed, lifted, and shook it in three spots before trying to open it again. It finally went up. My theory is ice locked up something, maybe the hinges. It’s been warm the last couple of days and the snow has been melting and refreezing at night. Because I was trapped in the garage, I ran a couple of minutes late and because of that, I got stuck by the stupid train (you can substitute an expletive for stupid–I did) and because I got stuck by the train, I was late for work. Grrr.

I was actually able to painlessly move my newsletter from Yahoo Groups to the new service. Shocked me since Yahoo tends to make nothing simple, yet this was. It took less than five minutes. The thing that’s interesting is in the one day since I switched over, I acquired more new subscribers than I did in a typical month with Yahoo. Either it’s the new website format where people can just put in their email address and hit enter or Yahoo was a detriment for people. I wonder which it was.

Tags: life, websites
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Author AND Time Traveler

Tuesday, February 20th, 2007

It’s taken me a while, but I’ve finally figured it out. I time travel.

I know! It’s hard to believe, but it makes complete sense. I’ll look at the clock and it’ll be 4:30 and a mere minute later, I’ll look and it’s 4:55. Clearly, I time traveled. How else can 25 minutes pass in only 1?

Sometimes I time travel in smaller increments, a matter of minutes. Other times I’ll move zip forward a couple of hours. I never know how far in the future I’m going to end up!

You’re probably wondering how I finally learned the truth.

It happened this morning. I was a little late getting up, but certainly not any worse than usual. I made coffee like I always do and settled down in front of the computer with a cup to make the rounds through my morning websites and read email. I looked at the clock. It was 4:30, the time I normally stop and write my blog, but I had a couple more sites left to visit. Certainly nothing that would take very long. I could look at them and still have time.

The next time I looked at the clock, it was 4:50.

I know I didn’t spend 20 minutes looking at a couple of things. How did this happen? I wondered. What could account for these missing minutes? Then it dawned on me–I’d time traveled. It made perfect sense. It’s why, in the blink of an eye, my mornings disappear. It’s why I’m always running late and playing beat the clock. Without any conscious effort on my part, I’m transporting myself forward in time. All those mornings where two or three hours disappeared without my being aware of them. All those mornings I had to race out the door to get to the EDJ (Evil Day Job) on time. All those mornings that I thought I’d overslept. Time travel!

I have positive proof–I still had coffee in my cup!

My morning cup of coffee does not last 20 minutes if I’m there to drink it and it certainly doesn’t have time to get cold. But if I time traveled and my mug didn’t, then it follows that I’d still have coffee and that it would no longer be hot.

The evidence is irrefutable.

Now that I know what’s happening, I need to learn how to control my super power. If I can travel forward in time, surely I can travel backward. Here’s my plan: I’m going to travel to Wednesday morning, read the winning lottery numbers in the paper, then return to Tuesday. On my way home from work today, I’ll buy a ticket with those numbers and act totally surprised when I win the $67 million jackpot. Then I’ll quit the EDJ and write full time.

I only wish I’d figured out that I had the power to control time sooner!

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