Blog

The pace of life is picking up again. Saturday will be all family stuff, and three days next week will be spent on the Kansas trip, plus at least a day to prepare for it. The rest of the month should be fairly open for writing, so I’m not stressing too much. Just a little.

A couple updates:

TWISTED – The advanced reading copies are supposed to go out soon. Do not ask me for one – I don’t have any. There is a magician who works at the publisher’s office who waves a wand and the books miraculously appear on the desks of unsuspecting readers. At least, I think how that works. TWISTED will be published in March, 2007 (yes, that is 6 months from now) so I don’t expect to see reviews for a very long time.

HISTORICAL PICTURE BOOK – This was supposed to be published in the summer of 2007, but the illustrator is behind, so the release has been pushed back to Summer, 2008. For therapy, I am gnawing through medium-sized trees. No, I’m fine with this. really, it’s good. Sigh.

NEW NOVEL – I am on Day 5 of Draft 1. The book is more outlined than usual because I have to mesh the story of the main character with the historical events. Of course, the gods laugh at outlines. They laughed so hard, they wet themselves. Chapter 3 turned out to be way too packed and morphed into Chapters 3-5. Yesterday I realized that Chapters 7-10 moved too slowly, so I started hacking away at fluff to even out the pacing. Those are the chapters I’ll be working on today. Probably tomorrow, too. I must admit that despite the long hours (12 of them yesterday) I am having fun. A couple of unexpected characters have popped up, and I’m enjoying delving into the soul of my main character. I am also beginning to have a much clearer sense of the emotional impact of some of the historical events.

A big forest shout-out to Dr. Kim McCollum-Clark who is using SPEAK in a class of hers at Millersville University! (While I am at it, I will make a fool of myself and jump up and down and wave at everybody I know at Millersville. :::jumping and waving:::: Take your vitamins! Get some sleep!)

Last but not least, I have two sites for you about graphic novels: Artbomb and No Flying No Tights. Let me know what you think.

Time to start shoveling words…

I have collected a bunch of writing and creativity quotes over the years. I think it’s time to start sharing them.

Here is my favorite:

“Don’t be ‘a writer.’ Be writing.”

William Faulkner to a group of Princeton students.

I welcome Ernesto with open umbrella and open arms.

Having grown up in Central New York, there is something about dreary, rainy days that makes the writing flow for me. Flow like a frothing river, awash in hurricane-inspired floodwaters. I cranked out one chapter this morning and am in danger of another before dinner. Go ahead, big guy. Rain some more.

I signed up for a Myspace account a couple weeks ago. Why? Curious. Looking for another way to reach out to readers. I have to admit that I am underwhelmed. The ads are annoying, but what I truly hate is the time I waste getting “an unexpected error has occurred, blah, blah” messages. Here’s a question – what would be an “expected error,” huh? LiveJournal is SO much better.

Back to the book. BH is cooking chili and there is football on tonight. I love my life.

Hear that tip-tip-tipping? It’s me at the keyboard again. Yay!!!

I hardly wrote at all in August. I read like a fiend, and gardened and painted and cooked and slept and worked out at the gym. I drank lemonade. I weeded (not enough) and picked up a couple sticks. I didn’t get to refinish the table, but a girl has to have a fall project, too. I saw some gorgeous sunsets, and hung out with our kids and my parents. Ran a couple 5-ks and had my butt kicked by the humidity. Read some Faulkner. I guess you could say I relaxed.

And now it is autumn. The tips of the leaves up here have been showing color for a couple weeks, and our farmer neighbors are selling apples. Nights are almost cold enough for a fire in the fireplace. I adore this season.

What was the best thing that happened to you all summer?

For me, summer ends at midnight, August 31st. I’m busy with doctor visits and paperwork, trying to get the boring stuff out of the way before I start writing again.

I love this time of year so much…. no matter how old I get, it feels like I should be getting ready for school. Thank God I don’t have to. My sympathies to all of you are are cramming in your required summer reading right now and making up journal entries about it.

Did any of you like your summer reading books? If so, what were they? What made them great?

What was the most boring summer reading book ever? What made it so bad?