Night, Sir Edward Burne-Jones

Every night lately my brain runs wild like a three-year old at the mall. Last night I slept for maybe two hours and forty-five minutes, no more than dozing with dreams really. So I decide fine, I’ll get some work done. Then the brain lies down flat and stiff on the floor and refuses to budge. Oy.

The shiny side of this dilemma is with all the whooping and hollering and knocking things down and keeping me awake that the brain was doing, it solved the problem I was having with Sweet Taboo and gifted me with the middle of the book–the three-year old zoomed up and gave mama a heart-melting grin before resuming chaos. I got the whole story now and I’m going to write it the way it needs to be written.

Right now I’m at the day job and in a few minutes I’m going to stroll to the Starbucks and get a latte, triple espresso, so I can get through today. Good thing Junior knows the way to work.

Seeing as sleep has gone on vacation, looks like I’ll be putting the hollow hours of the night to good use.

Hilltop, Maxfield Parrish

4,984, Cloak of Shar. Finished the battle scene yesterday and wrote a new scene as well. Story stuff has been percolating for the past two years. Hope I’m able to find my way through to the rest of the tale. Went with a friend to see The Dark Knight. Heath Ledger’s performance alone is worth the ticket price. Good movie. It’s hot and sunny and lovely outside, but I’m thinking I ought to be writing.

Roses Under the Trees, Gustav Klimt

43,871, Loose Daddy

21,948, Sweet Taboo

The repairman didn’t show up until sometime between 3 and 4 so I didn’t make it into the office at all on Thursday. I didn’t mind; I needed a day off from the drive and the office. I worked on Sweet Taboo (but all I did was cut) ’cause Loose Daddy is slow going lately. Every time I set a deadline to finish a piece of writing it does me no good, but after days of nothing, I was finally able to continue the conversation between Tyrell and Lucas Monroe, another page along. However, my two pages a day goal for the month of July met the sun of resistance and turned to ashes. So I’ll have to be content with what I get each morning for the rest of this month.

Got back Steve’s comments on the first 3 chapters of Sweet Taboo, and all’s well pretty much. He only had a few cosmetic changes and he said it was a pleasure to read and that it has great characterization, believable storyline, and good pacing. I so appreciate those words.

Met Janet today for our monthly writer’s lunch. She had a bag of birthday gifts for me. One particular gift was a lovely bookmark–a pink cord with a rose pink square dangling from one end with the word “Dream” in silver and from the other end my initial, a pink and silver “D”. Being a bookmark junkie, I love it, and I laughed and told her “dream” is all I seem to do ’cause actually finishing my novels and getting them out the door seems an impossible task for me. But I’m not quitting. I’m too close.

I pulled out Cloak of Shar last night and gave it a read-through–all 4,400 words. It’s a fantasy story I started in 2006. It read well; I liked the characters, and had written my way through to the start of a war and stopped ’cause I didn’t know what to do after that. So Janet and I talked about it and she gave me some good suggestions to move the story along. I don’t want to stare at LD and ST this afternoon, so I’m going to see if I can plot more of Cloak of Shar. On with the dream.

Skittle Players Outside an Inn, Jan Steen

I’m home today waiting for a repairman who is supposed to be here between 8 and noon. It’s 10:20 now and I’m thinking he’ll probably get here just at noon. Don’t know if I’m going to make it into the office at all.

Now and then I think about Louisiana, about my years growing up there on and off between traveling to live elsewhere when Daddy transferred between Air Force bases. My memories of Louisiana are soft and vague in many ways and vivid in others. I remember dragonflies, violet and green, their wings glistening in summer sunlight. And four o’clocks that closed when you touched their sun-sensitive leaves, fireflies at dusk, and moths immolating themselves on Aunt Nora’s porchlight. I remember strongly the pecan tree that stood in Aunt Nora’s front yard and, lingering still in my memory, the narcissus growing by the ditch. The paper-white blooms gave off a musky perfume, honeyed and woodsy.

I loved gathering pecans, plucking them from among layers of brittle leaves and tangled grass. I see the hard brown ovals of shell with zig-zags of black capping the pointy end. My fingertips used to be sore from shelling the nuts to make pecan candy. There is nothing like the taste of a fresh pecan, that rich buttery-nut flavor, faintly resinous. Aunt Nora (my great-aunt) also had what she called a Japanese plum tree–a loquat tree I know now. I found its yellow fruit exotic and delicious but it didn’t bear often or maybe the birds ate the fruit before it could fall. I rarely found any in the grass beneath the tree. The tree was too tall for me to reach any fruit on even the lower branches and climbing it was out of the question. A large piece of tin lay against its trunk and once I sliced my leg on it. I tended to avoid that tree after that.

Behind Ma Stell’s house was the bayou, brown and still. Stories of cottonmouth snakes kept me from getting too close to it. If I saw a ripple on its opaque surface, I knew it was a snake, and I would scare myself with visions of it lancing out of the water at me. (Now there’s a memory I don’t need.)

I’ve been at work on Sweet Taboo this morning, and the word count is bleeding, had to chop out a significant portion–a duplicate scene and a few other scenes that don’t fit anymore, but which I hope to salvage later. Took a break to blog; now I’m getting back to work–have to do some thinking.

Oh, thanks to everyone who enjoyed Janet’s interview. If I can persuade any other writers I know, I’ll post more interviews.

The Venetians, Sir Samuel Luke Fildes

43,672, Loose Daddy.

28,028, Sweet Taboo.

Sorry to have missed so many days without posting, but I’ve been “rolling down the cliff” of the day to day work routine and general mundanities with so much on my mind I only have enough gumption to drive Junior back and forth. I’m on the brink of a major decision–leaving California–but I won’t know for sure for a while yet so it’s one more boulder rolling around in the back of my mind, bumping up against the two novel manuscripts and all the other rocks and gravel back there.

Decent work done on Sweet Taboo this morning, and even managed to finish a page of Loose Daddy before I had to get up from my desk and get going. Steve has the first 3 chapters of Sweet Taboo and I’m anxiously anticipating his response.

Among the books I’m reading is a recent birthday gift from Michelle, Plainsong by Kent Haruf. Reading it reminds me of why I love the 3rd person viewpoint and voice. Third person lets you move in, out, and around the characters, be in their viewpoint for a time and then slip out into the narrative voice–the storyteller voice. The storyteller voice lets the reader see other aspects of the characters and their world. It’s the voice that informs, names,  explains, and describes using various writing devices–metaphor, simile, imagery, anecdote, etc. It is an observing voice, and it always lures me into a story. Thanks, Michelle. I’m loving this book.

Last night I watched Perfect Creature, directed by Glenn Standring. Set in an alternate New Zealand, it’s a well wrought vampire tale, but I wanted more story. What was conveyed was very intriguing. It ended in a way that made me hope for a second film. I particularly liked its mood, the way it was shot, its vision of an alternate world where vampires live peaceably with humans and are the keepers of religion and science–until the worse happens. I also liked Dougray Scott as Silus, the vampire hero. I’m adding this one to my dvd collection. In fact, I’ve decided to start collecting my favorite vampire films, including Thirty Days of NIght, and The Hunger. I already own Bram Stoker’s Dracula. I’m always on the lookout for a good vampire movie.

I’ve known Janet Quinn for more years than I can count on both hands. She’s a dyed-in-the-wool storyteller with the envious ability to create charming characters in stories that are both heartwarming and adventurous. Janet published her first novel, a time travel romance, Yesteryear’s Love, (Berkeley) in 1999, which by the way, is being republished by Amber Quill Press. If you’re in the mood for romance, adventure, a dash of time travel, a swirl of shapeshifter fantasy, pick up a Janet Quinn. Janet’s a prolific writer, and she kindly took time from her schedule to answer a few questions in an e-mail interview. So, here’s the Quinn-tessence…

Why do you write?

I write because it makes me feel good. I have always been a storyteller and I always have a story that needs to be told. I can’t imagine not writing. It is part of who I am.

How do you find the story?

I find stories everywhere. I’ll read an article in a magazine or see a movie trailer that will spark an idea. I’ve gotten ideas from television movies. I’ve had them pop into my head. Sometimes something a speaker says will spark an idea. At times I actually sit down and think up a story idea for a specific purpose.

What is your writing routine?

I try to write on Friday afternoons if I don’t have to go anywhere. Most of the time I write on Saturday and Sunday afternoons and evenings. If I have to do edits, I’ll work every evening on them.

How do you revise?

I finish the first draft, then let the story sit for at least a week. Then I sit in front of the computer and start with page one and go to the end. I have the story read by someone else, and when I get it back, I go through the whole story again, putting in anything marked on the manuscript and rereading it for other changes. Now that I have a laptop, I sit on the couch, in front of the television, and do revisions. I don’t write on the laptop, just do revisions.

What are your thoughts about the writer’s voice? What do you think of your own voice?

Every writer has a voice. That’s what makes his or her writing different from everyone else’s. I think some writers have more than one voice. I have a romance voice which I have to watch and make sure it doesn’ t bleed into the non-romance pieces I write. I also have an historical voice with which I am very comfortable. I also am developing a contemporary voice and a fantasy voice. Each genre needs a different voice.

What advice do you have for the aspiring writer?

If you want to be a writer, the only way to learn is to sit down and write. Each piece you write will be better than the last one. You need to think of writing as a job and set aside time that is writing time. Otherwise it becomes a hobby that you do when and if you have time. Also, take writing classes. There is so much information out there and so many people willing to share their experience.

Thank you, Janet. Check out Janet’s books at her site.

The Property Room, Arthur Hughes

When I’m writing new narrative, trying to, I hate the deep uncertainty that yawns a great dark abyss in my consciousness, bare of every worthwhile thought except the idiotic gibberish the mind throws up like dream waste. I’ve heard it said that one scene grows from another, but that rarely happens to me. I guess it’s because I’m not a linear thinker, and my stories grow out of patchwork writing. Sometimes a scene comes easily, composing itself as I think it through on the page, but most are like hewing stone from a mountain.

Right now I’m working my way up the sheer cliff of a new scene in Sweet Taboo. I think the story needs this scene; I think it works, or will work, in the action of the plot. And I think the big problem I’m having is I have not prepared my mind, not filled the well, with the details I need to write it–so it’s balking, and I’m dangling off the cliff, wailing.

Up before the sun on the morning of the fourth, set up the auto-feeder and water fountain for Taffy and Levi, schlepped my packed bags to the car, and pointed Junior’s Barcelona red nose north, 405 to the 101 Ventura, Santa Barbara on the far horizon. By daybreak, I’d crossed into Ventura County, the drive up smooth and uncluttered. The freeway swooped toward the coast and I cast happy glances at the ocean, flat and nickel-blue all the way to the thinnest curve of land eastward. A fine start to my birthday.

It was 7:30 when I exited into downtown Santa Barbara, very early for my 3 pm check-in at A White Jasmine Bed & Breakfast Inn. At that hour, the roses were still dozing. I parked Junior near the B&B, and strolled fearlessly through Santa Barbara’s easy-to-navigate neighborhood streets in search of breakfast. Found a Carrows on the corner of Carrillo and De La Vina. The waitress was cheerful, the coffee was good, my over-medium eggs were properly over-medium. Yep. A happy day.

Downtown was bare and quiet. After breakfast I walked about in the sun, taking in Santa Barbara’s standard architecture: white adobe buildings and red-cobbled roofs, embraced by bougainvillea, date palms, ficus trees, rose bushes, blue-violet agapanthus, and lots of other flora.

I fetched Mac from the car and settled myself at a Starbucks to get some work done. The first glitch in my day happened when I couldn’t get T-Mobile’s HotSpot to let me surf the net. Don’t know what the hell the problem was but T-Mobile owes me $9.99 for a daypass I wasn’t able to use and I intend to get my money back. (I didn’t have a registered Starbucks coffee card with me so I couldn’t take advantage of the free two hours, and beside, I needed more than two hours. And since I couldn’t surf, I couldn’t register a card. Most annoying.) I couldn’t sign on with AT&TWiFi either. Disgusted and irritated, I left Starbucks and found a Coffee Bean and Tea Leaf, signed on with AT&T–no problem–and got back to work.

Preoccupied with Loose Daddy (as well as preparing Janet’s interview for posting), I missed the 4th of July parade down State Street. That is, I didn’t go out to watch, but I heard the music. I still had time before check-in so I enjoyed another stroll down State Street, found the Barnes&Noble and worked on Sweet Taboo.

My room was at the top of the stairs. Named Wild Rose, it was decorated in Country Victoriana–roses, roses, roses. Breakfast was delivered to my door this morning and there’s free Internet. I’ll post more photos when I get home.

Friday night I followed the rest of Santa Barbara on a long walk down State Street to Stearn’s Wharf where we all milled about and waited for the fireworks show to begin. Strolling through the tunnel people screamed, yelled, hooted, howled like banshees on crack for the joy of it, just to hear their voices bouncing off the stone.

The fireworks were spectacular–once they got it going. There were a few hitches and halts but then–long white blossom tails hissed skyward and burst into sparkling white showers, blooming scattershots, white, red, blue, and gold, chased each other against the smoky dark like glittering firebugs, lingering gold and white shimmers, huge balls of crackling brights–amber, sapphire, emerald, ruby.

The percussive blasts excited the crowd even more than the show itself. In fact the louder the boom, the happier the crowd. At the end, the firemasters set off a sequential burst of cascading stars, blossoms, spirals, showers, and brilliant sunbursts that hung shimmering in the sky, radiating golden needles, overlapping each other. Everybody was stunned happy and cheered mightily, taken back to childhood glee. It was too much fun!

The holiday weekend was my personal mini-writer’s retreat–my birthday gift to myself (one of several actually)–so I had an agenda:

1. Two pages on “Loose Daddy”
2. Get Janet’s interview ready for posting at pendrifter
3. Research agents for “Loose Daddy”
4. Work on “Sweet Taboo”

I worked on LD, but didn’t write my two pages–yet. I did get Janet’s interview ready and will post when I’m home. I did compile a list of ten agents for LD (a good start), and work on “Sweet Taboo” is going well.

The birthday girl is still smiling.

Summer, Walter Crane

43,517, Loose Daddy. Tomorrow’s my birthday. Every passing year my birthdays get happier and happier! I must be doing it wrong. d:))

Merchant Receiving Moor in the Harbor, Nicolaes Bercham

42,826, Loose Daddy. Good work on LD during the weekend, and, surprise, surprise, 1,844 words on Sweet Taboo. Sunshine lured me outside into the cooling, sea-born breezes that sweep the bluff. I took Neo and went to sit in the little park overlooking the beach, wasn’t sure what would come of it, but at least I was outside enjoying the day.

Neo really is a boon to my productivity. I think because I can only see a few lines, I’m not thinking about a big white screen and how much I have to write. I’ve got Neo set to show me 4 lines. Before I know it, when I get home and print it out, I discover I’ve written ten pages at a sitting. That just makes me happy. So, since I was so very productive, I earned a treat. Took myself off to see WANTED, an assassin thriller with  Angelina Jolie, James McAvoy, and Morgan Freeman. Loved it! But, y’know, I’ve got a thing for assassins. Right next to my thing for vampires. 

Which reminds me–I watched 30 DAYS OF NIGHT again. Still like it. Liked it even better the second time.

I pulled out Sweet Taboo because next week I’m taking it to Santa Barbara with me. I didn’t expect to really get anything new written on it this weekend, but I wanted to reconnect with the story and see where I’d stopped. Chapter 7 it was, and now Chapter 7 is finished. I’m taking Loose Daddy too, so I can do my two pages, however, ST is where I’ll devote most of the hours, and I hope to come home with Chapter 8.