Random Thoughts for the Day

My fella sent me this today. Good stuff!


Random Thoughts for the Day:

1. I think part of a best friend's job should be to immediately
clear your computer history if you die.

2. Nothing sucks more than that moment during an argument when you
realize you're wrong.

3. I totally take back all those times I didn't want to nap when I
was younger.

4. There is great need for a sarcasm font.

5. How the hell are you supposed to fold a fitted sheet?

6. Was learning cursive really necessary?

7. Map Quest really needs to start their directions on #5. I'm
pretty sure I know how to get out of my neighborhood.

8. Obituaries would be a lot more interesting if they told you how
the person died.

9. I can't remember the last time I wasn't at least kind of tired.

10. Bad decisions make good stories.

11. You never know when it will strike, but there comes a moment at
work when you know that you just aren't going to do anything
productive for the rest of the day.

12. Can we all just agree to ignore whatever comes after Blue Ray?
I don't want to have to restart my collection...again.

13. I'm always slightly terrified when I exit out of Word and it
asks me if I want to save any changes to my ten-page research paper
that I swear I did not make any changes to.

14. "Do not machine wash or tumble dry" means I will never wash this
-- EVER!!!

15. I hate when I just miss a call by the last ring (Hello? Hello?
Damn it!), but when I immediately call back, it rings nine times and
goes to voicemail. What'd you do after I didn't answer? Drop the
phone and run away?

16. I hate leaving my house confident and looking good and then not
seeing anyone of importance the entire day. What a waste.

17. I keep some people's phone numbers in my phone just so I know
not to answer when they call.

18. My 4-year old son asked me in the car the other day, "Mom, what
would happen if you ran over a ninja?" How the hell do I respond to
that?

19. I think the freezer deserves a light as well.

20. I disagree with Kay Jewelers. I would bet on any given Friday
or Saturday night more kisses begin with Bud Lites than Kay.

21. And finally...Have you ever wondered if that dollar bill your
holding has ever been in a strippers butt crack? You are now...

More This 'N That

Got a new playlist up. Another mish-mash. My tastes in music are all over the place. I like different songs for different reasons.

Well, the writing has helped me sleep. I've slept like a baby for the last three nights. This morning I was up at 5:15 to do the work out. Of course, now I'm shot. It's cold as hell here in Upstate NY too, which makes me feel sleepy. But the temps are supposed to reach 80 degrees by Saturday. I don't know what kind of mind f*ck that is, but somebody up there is laughing their ass off.

My eyes are getting sleepy, so I'm heading off to curl up in bed with a notebook. Do a little free association and see what comes up. Sometimes when I'm tired like this interesting ideas come to me. Snatches of conversation between characters, scenes, sometimes a face or just a word or two.

The last time I did a free association with my eyes closed, a couple of weeks ago, a very clear, vivid snippet of a scene came to me, which was not connected to anything I'm currently working on. But I know for certain that the snippet was just a small part of an entire book brewing in the back of my mind.

Okay, I'm off.

Some Work Done

When my fella got home today I grabbed my netbook and flew out the door, headed for my parking lot of choice to write in. I went into a coffee shop, bought a cup of coffee, settled into the passenger seat with netbook, hit the 'on' button, and watched as absolutely nothing happened.

Turns out that battery had run down, the battery I paid an extra sixty bucks on that machine for because it supposedly has a 10 hour life *cough* *horseshit* *cough*.

Of course it was my own fault for not recharging it after using it several times on battery alone. How many hours did I use it on battery alone? I don't know. Could be anywhere from three to eight, I'm guess. Or....maybe...um, ten. But probably not.

Sooooooo, I rushed home, ran back in, plugged the sucker in, grabbed the full sized laptop, and headed back to my parking lot of choice. Where I wrote 3 pages.

Not so bad. It would've been more if I hadn't been feeling the time crunch pressure of having to do some shopping before going home, and not wanting my beloved's head to explode watching the two boys on his own. Could get a little hectic, to say the least. Next time I'll do the shopping ahead of time, with the little bug, so as to squeeze all the writing time I can out of my parking lot writing session.

Tis the season, because it's too damned cold in the winter and I don't like to keep the heat running in the truck, and my winter coat feels too tight and constricting and my gloves make it hard to hit the damned keys. And my fingers get too cold without gloves.

Anyway, I digress.

Why do parking lots appeal to my writer self? I'm not really sure. Maybe it's the anonymity of it all. I can sit and pound away at the keys, feeling safe in the enclosed, cacoon-like atmosphere of my truck, while people bustle around me but don't really see me. Other than that, I don't really know. But I dig it and I'm usually able to get a few pages if not more out of the session.

I have two areas I like to write in. One in particular that I feel most comfortable in. Of course, I'm paranoid, even though I'm certain there are cameras overlooking most parking lots these days, that somebody will try to get in my truck and cause me bodily harm or, worse, *gasp* steal my laptop.

I'd be insulted enough by the perpetrator attempting to cause me bodily harm, but let me tell you, if he or she were trying to steal my laptop, they would most certainly be lucky to limp away from my truck with several gouges, gaping, and bloody chunks where hair used to be, and a mild concussion.

They'd have to pry said laptop from my cold, dead hands, after which time I'd have pummeled the hell out of them and taken the boots to them, and screamed many bad words at them.

So you can see that the chances of prying the laptop from my cold, dead hands are pretty slim.

So, three pages is three pages, and I'll try to get more this week. I'm off to bed with a book.

A Day in the Life of a Writer

This seriously cracked me up today:

The Light at the End of the Tunnel

I got close to 2000 words down today. The rough draft of this book is almost done. Wow. Just a few more scenes and that'll be that, then I can go back and read through again, and see what else is still missing and what isn't needed, and what needs to be moved around. And have, so far, three fairly climactic scenes, any of which could be used as the final scene.

One of these still needs to be written but it's what Holly Lisle calls a candy bar scene. A scene that is fun to write, so you write the not-so fun ones and reward yourself with the candy bar scene for being such a good little writer and doing your work. So I'm saving it as the final scene to write, whether it ends up being the final showdown scene or not.

My fella took our little guy out so that I could get a good writing session in today. I'm a much happier person after a good writing session, and I think that maybe my pacing and wandering aimlessly around the house, as well as my slightly glassy-eyed gaze into nothingness, tipped him off that I needed the time badly.

Maybe I'll actually be able to sleep past 4:30 a.m (it was actually 4:00 a.m the night before last) tonight, and without waking up a thousand times.

Okay, break over, going to look at my mind map for this book and see where I need to go next. I can't believe I'm almost there. Wow. Woohoo!

A New Day

It's been a crazy two weeks at work, though I love being there, and I've been tired. So the writing has suffered. I've been feeling a little off.

One of the worst days was yesterday, but I won't go into it. Something happened to kind of knock me off kilter. Not the end of the world, and there was an eventual explanation, but it took me some time to get my feet back under me. It was one of those things that you don't think would bother you all that much, but then when it actually happens, it knocks you on your ass.

Anyway, I looked at the big picture and thought of things in context and then in retrospect, and after a while felt better. Just felt pissed at myself for being affected in such a way.

AND my purse strap broke. A purse I like, though it wasn't very expensive. Still. I liked it.

It was just not the best of days.

But today was a new day. And I feel pretty damned good. Things are so much nicer this night than last. It's amazing how things can turn around in a day. But it's largely the way you react to things that makes the difference. And what really matters in this life? The things that matter are not the trivial things. It's the connections you make with others that really matters.

I got up way early and got a work-out in, and I got a new purse. On sale at Kohls. Because I love Kohls. Yes I do.

I'm sleepy now, so I'm signing off here. Not much but a ramble, but it's my blog and I'll ramble if I want to :)

Later all.

Laura Bickle Interview

Today we have a treat! An interview with the lovely Laura Bickle. Thanks for joining us, Laura.

Laura, you have two books being released soon, Embers in April and Dark Oracle, under your other author name, Alayna Williams, in June. Would you tell us about each of those books?

In EMBERS, Anya Kalinczyk spends her days as an arson investigator with the Detroit Fire Department, and her nights pursuing malicious spirits with a team of eccentric ghost hunters. Anya—who is the rarest type of psychic medium, a Lantern—suspects a supernatural arsonist is setting blazes to summon an ancient entity that will burn the city to cinders. By Devil’s Night, the spell will be complete, unless Anya—with the help of the ghost hunters and her fire salamander familiar, Sparky—can stop it.

In DARK ORACLE, Tara Sheridan swore off criminal profiling after narrowly escaping a serial killer who left her scarred for life. By combining Tarot card divination with her own intuition, she must help an intense federal agent find a missing scientist who has unlocked the destructive secrets of dark energy. The agent, Harry Li, draws her out of her self-imposed exile and back into the world.

What was the inspiration behind both books?

EMBERS was inspired by the idea of a fire salamander familiar. In EMBERS, Anya has had a spunky fire salamander since she was a child. There's not much out there in the literature about salamanders, and I wanted to explore the possibilities.

For DARK ORACLE, the inspiration was the Queen of Swords card from the Tarot deck. It shows a resolute woman staring off into the distance, holding her sword as if she's cut herself. I've always loved that card, and wanted to create a heroine from that archetype.

Did you find one book easier to write than the other?

EMBERS was faster to write, though it was emotionally more difficult. The heroine, Anya, has her roots in the myth of Ishtar. Ishtar was the Babylonian goddess of war and sex. Anya has a very strong dark side to her personality. When she's possessed by a demon, that dark side is given free reign.

DARK ORACLE was more difficult to write because I wrote with a deck of Tarot cards in hand. I was constantly referring to the cards, rethinking spreads, making sure of the meanings. It required more research.

What draws you to write stories about the supernatural?

I love the idea that there's something beneath the everyday world, something invisible and magical. Writing about the supernatural is a way to touch that unseen world, to imagine what our reality would be like if there were just a few different rules, and magic was the hidden law.

Who were your influences?

When I was a child, I read Robin McKinley's HERO AND THE CROWN and BLUE SWORD. I'd never read any fantasy before with strong female heroines, and I was instantly in love with the genre.

My current influence is my fabulous editor, Paula Guran. She teaches as she works, and I'm learning so much about how to build a compelling story.

What is your writing process and how has it evolved?

I'm a little - okay, a lot - anal-retentive about outlining. I start with a synopsis, then add more meat to the bones of the synopsis-skeleton as I write. I feel much more secure knowing where the story is going. That's not to say that there aren't surprises, but I like to be able to navigate.

I tried being a pantser, but my attention wandered too much, and I don't feel like I developed the story structure I needed with that approach. I envy pantsers...I wish I could keep everything so straight in my head!

Do you work on more than one project at a time?

Yes. The EMBERS and DARK ORACLE series are going on concurrently. I'm also in the midst of various stages of editing for the sequels, SPARKS and ROGUE ORACLE. I like being able to shift gears. When I get stuck on one project, there's always another one waiting.

What kind of books do you enjoy reading?

I love all kinds of fantasy and stories about the supernatural. Lately, I've been reading completely unrelated books about soap-making - sounds odd to switch from things that go bump in the night to suds, doesn't it?

What project are you working on now?

I'm working on the sequel to DARK ORACLE. It's called ROGUE ORACLE. In ROGUE, Tara Sheridan and Harry Li are chasing a Chernobyl survivor who's selling nuclear secrets on the international black market. Tara is coming to terms with her destiny as an oracle and rebelling against an ancient society of oracles of which her mother was a part.

What is your favorite sweet treat?

Mmmmm...chocolate oranges. They're my favorite treat to ward off the winter blues.

Thanks so much for the interview! I had a blast. :-)

Thank you, Laura! I can't wait to read Embers and Dark Oracle!

Embers and Dark Oracle can be pre-ordered from Amazon now!

Personal - By Fergie

I heard this song in the car yesterday and was struck by how much it rings true for me. At the moment I want to hug someone, or when I'm feeling closest to them, is the very moment I pull away. That's the moment I scramble for space.

I don't do this with my son, which is a good thing. But it's a trigger reaction with me. It takes a while to get over. But it's sooooooo there. It has nothing to do with that person I'm seemingly shoving away, except that I might feel like I may need them.

Christ, no. Anything but that.

So here is Fergie's Personal.

Like Breathing

I often blog during the time when I just put my little guy in for a nap for to bed for the night, before he falls asleep, so that I'm not burning up writing time. Blogging can be done while he's happily babbling away, or screaming, infuriated that I've put him down to sleep when he doesn't want to sleep, damn it! But I don't need to concentrate all that hard to blog.

Writing, I do. If I try really hard I can concentrate on the words while distractions are around. I can plot with chaos going on around, but finding the words with a toddler needing my attention is a little trickier.

I went to Lilith Saintcrow's blog today, because I love her books and find her incredibly inspiring, and loved what I read. I found Lilith last autumn, and I think she's freakin' awesome. In this post she talks about women writers needing space. I think probably all writers need space, but women tend to be pulled in many other directions with taking care of children and the house.

Most of us do the majority of the house work and child care. We do the cooking, for the most part. I'm lucky because my fella does help with the cooking and he does dishes. Which rocks. He also does the outdoor work. So I don't mind doing the indoor cleaning. It's a good compromise. But I'm the major care giver. And toddlers are very distracting and needy, as they should be.

So I'm trying to learn to concentrate while the bean is causing mayhem all around me. But I often feel guilty for not being completely there with him. So this is a struggle.

Like Lilith, I need to do the writing. If I don't write, within a week or two I pay for it. I end up really fatigued. I become an insomiac and when I do sleep, I'm plagued with nightmares or, at the very least, strange dreams. I become edgy and restless, and feel lost and at odds with myself. So I really need the writing, even if it's just a small session here and there. I been like this for as long as I can remember being able to write stories.

It's not a hobby or a passing fancy. It's who I am, and it's how I stay sane. And if I had to, I'd write on the cardboard box I was living in if it ever came to that.

I've written in parking lots in my car in the pouring rain. I've written on buses, on airplanes, on a rooftop, in laundry rooms, under a bed when I was a kid, scribbling away in the midst of insanity.

I've written in the dead of night, finding comfort in tapping away at they keys with trembling fingers while spectres of bad dreams loomed all around me, in the early pre-dawn hours when my eyes snapped open after a scene played out in a dream, or when a character's voice said something so clear it sounded as if they were in the room with me. I could go on forever. But if you need to do write, you find ways. You just do.

In some of my darkest moments I've written entire scenes in my head, when I didn't have the energy to tap them out. But I knew I'd come back to them and write them out later.

If you're a writer, it's who you are. It's your faith, it's your religion, it's the way you make it through life when life turns to shit and it looks like all is lost. The words will always be there. They are the hand being offered when you're sinking in quick sand.

Sound dramatic? It is. For some of us, telling stories makes the difference between living and dying.

I've had people try to cripple me emotionally so that I couldn't write, because they couldn't stand the competition; my attention and love being placed elsewhere, even for a little while. Two almost succeeded, for a little while, but not quite. If I'm not tapping away at the keys or jotting in a notebook, a post-it note, a napkin, whatever the hell is handy, then I'm jotting those notes down in my head.

Please excuse any errors today. My little guy is yelling at me and I have to get him up. Another no nap day. *Sigh*

I guess I'll be sitting in a parking lot in my truck with my netbook after daddy gets home :)

As I Lay Me Down

I noticed a little while ago that the As I Lay Me Down on my playlist isn't Sophie B Hawkins. I do like the song, though. Even if I don't know who the guy is. But this is the song I meant to add to the playlist. It was one of the times where I just hit "add" and didn't listen to the song before adding it. I guess I haven't listened to the playlist in its entirety until this morning.



My little guy had a bad dream and woke up crying at 2:30 a.m. I got up and rocked him in my arms for a long time, and finally put him down around 3:00 but he couldn't sleep until after 4:00. It took me some time to fall back to sleep after that, so I'm a tad bit punchy today.

He would not nap for me so I spent the morning playing with him, letting him push the swiffer around (since he insisted), and then swapping and letting him push the button to spray the detergent on the floor while I pushed the swiffer around.

We took a nice walk up and down the road and I watched him run around in the back yard, picking up rocks and inspecting them before tossing them aside. He climbed up the slide and flew down screaming Weeeeeeeee!!!!!

So now daddy's got him, taking him for a ride in the truck and I'm going to write. YAY! In between loads of laundry and cleaning the bathrooms of course.

It's a gorgeous day in Upstate NY! If it's gorgeous where you are, get out there if you can, even for just a few minutes.

No Shutter Island Yet. Close, but not Quite.

Got a little writing done tonight, but not as much as I'd have liked. My eyes are closing. I'm sooooo tired.

I can't even believe it's Friday. The week has flown by so fast. Last Saturday a friend and I decided to go see Shutter Island. We paid for our tickets, got all comfy in our seats, sat through the commercials (yes, they show commercials now at movie theaters) and previews, filled with excitement and anticipation. Just as the movie was about to start, the screen went black.

We sat there for long minutes on end. Eventually a young guy who looked to be about twelve years old told us that they were having technical difficulties, but to sit tight and the movie would start soon.

It didn't. After about fifteen minutes he came back and told us that the movie wouldn't be showing. We all got two free movie tickets but maaaaaaan. What a let down.

So we went out for a bite, and I had the most mouth watering buffalo chicken salad EVER. We had a good time anyway, but were both really disappointed that we didn't get to see the movie.

Trying to decide if we want to try again this weekend. I have a ton of stuff to get done so I really shouldn't. *Sigh* I don't know.

Have any of you seen it yet?

I'm going to bed. I need to curl up under my quilt and cuddle in. It's been a long day. Night all.

Ashley MacIsaac

Perfect for St. Patrick's Day, Canadian fiddler Ashley MacIsaac's Sleepy Maggie. I love that the singer is singing in Gaelic. Ashley kicks ass.

Happy St. Patrick's Day!

Monday

Blogging here today. Come join me :)

Partly Coherent Gibberish

Once again, I have to say, I love this guy. He is so sharp and down to earth, and he says it like it is. Love that. Of course, being an ebook writer, his views on the subject are nice for me to hear. But then, pretty much every writer now is an ebook writer now, as most publishers have ebook formats of all their books these days.

It's not even 9 p.m and my eyes are closing. It's the whole waking up before 5 a.m thing. I reset the internal clock so that I can do the work outs in the morning before my shower and getting ready for work thing. So now I wake up at about 4:50 every morning. Makes me dead tired at night.

But the work outs lift my mood. I've been feeling pretty happy lately. Spring is coming! More sunshine. Warmer days. They help, but the exercise makes me feel better all around. I have more energy during the day, and all that serotonin rushing through my brain, I guess.

I'm going to bed early with a book. I'm re-reading my Dennis Lehane books, which I do every few years. He makes me happy, so I'm going to bed with him a lot lately. I have many shiny books on my shelf. Newer books with kick-ass covers, books I haven't read yet, but nobody does it like Dennis. So for the next while, no one else will do.

He keeps me warm as I snuggle under the flannel sheets and quilts with him, he gets my heart racing, and he makes me laugh. He gets me tingling and he leaves me breathless. Can't get much better than that. I've loaned him out to people who haven't given him back, and have had to buy the entire series and the stand alones again, twice. So I refuse to share him with anyone again.

Don't get me wrong. I love sharing books. I give them away all the time. I don't care if I get any other book back. In fact, I don't expect them back. I'm happy to share the happiness, and I have far too many books on my shelf, on the bed side table, the floor beside the bed, and under the bed, to ever want them back. If I've given a book to you, please keep it.

But Dennis Lehane, I want back.

Okay, off I go.

Quiet Lately

I can't believe it's already Wed. This week is flying by so fast. Every week does, really. I haven't had much time to think,so I haven't had much to say. Work has been way hectic, which is great, but I haven't had time to reflect on anything or form an opinion on anything that ticks me off enough to blog about.

So hopefully I'll have more to say in a day or two. But I'll leave you with this video. I'm not usually much for hip hop but I really like the rhythmic beat and melody of this song. I blast it in the truck and do the seat dance when it comes on. The lyrics aren't going to change the world, but I like the sound.

Looking into Darkness

Crazy day, but I did get a blog entry done for Liquid Silver Books, which is due March 15th. I also asked the first couple of what I'm sure is a bunch of questions of a woman who lived through a horrible time in the eighties, and who is still recovering.

I won't say much more than that, as I'm supersitious about the books I write. But if she likes, if this book ever sees the publishing light of day, she will be thanked in the acknowledgements. If she doesn't want her name out there, that's cool too.

I've been writing around the really hard stuff in this book, and so although this woman welcomes my questions, I was avoiding doing this part of the research. I was actually entertaining the idea of not doing the heavy research. Just taking what I already know and hoping that would be enough.

But if I do that, I'll not only be cheating myself but anyone who ever reads this book. If I'm going to do it, I have to do it right. Otherwise I'm not giving this woman or the countless other victims of this crime justice. I'd be doing them a disservice, because the truth of what happened and still continues to happen is too hard for me to know about. The details, which makes the crimes so real, is so too heartwrenching to deal with.

So it's time to get down and dirty. Time to dig in and get 'er done.

My eyes are heavy and I feel like I'm rambling. So I'm heading off to bed with a book. If I get a good sleep I can get up early for the work out.

Over and out.

Sparks!

Laura's cover for Sparks has been released. It's friggin' gorgeous! Her new release Embers will be out next month!

Shutter Island

I'm trying not to run around screaming with glee. Shutter Island is in theaters now. Woohoo!

Based on the novel by Dennis Lehane. Martin Scorsese directing. Leonardo DiCaprio. Need I say more? I think not. But here is the trailer.