Writing, or playing with dolls?

As I've been working on my latest, I realized about 2/3 the way through that it was missing "something." That's usually the way I work, though. I let the story flow and at some point I take a breath and look over my shoulder at what I've written. Then I pick up all the threads that I've dropped along the way.

I took a walk with the Big Guy last night and mulled over what was missing. One of my kind reviewers described my work as "the perfect blend of romance and mystery," and indeed, that is what I strive to write. This story was missing a tangible mystery. And then it came to me.

The fun part (and when you're developing a story, it is almost always fun) is envisioning scenarios, dialog, settings. Once that missing link fell into place, I was excited to know that I've already created the framework for where I need to go, it only required a little rearranging to make it take that mysterious turn that would make the story more interesting. I laid in bed last night, playing scenes, moving my characters around, and had a sudden flashback to my childhood. This is what I did when I played with dolls. I made up stories for them, put them into situations they had to find a way out of, gave them words to say to one another.

Does this mean writing puts me in touch with my inner child? Does this make me a child at heart? Writing characters in the book is a lot like a grown up version of Barbie and Ken.

I have yet to finish the first draft, although it is in sight. The title I started with, which was more the inspiration, isn't going to work, so I have to keep that thought process bubbling on the back burner. Some of the original impetus has fallen by the wayside (that happens as you write your way through a story) in favor of stronger themes and plots/subplots, and yet this is the exciting part about writing--seeing where the story will take you. What starts out as a small kernel begins with a starting point that almost ALWAYS gets cut later in favor of a "stronger" beginning and morphs into something that rarely resembles the original idea. And you know what? That's okay.

The downside is that the forward momentum has stopped in favor of backtracking.  I'm making negative progress at the moment, and yet it is positive progress.

And last - thanks to everyone who took advantage of the "free" offer. I hope you'll take the time to leave a review at your favorite book sight! (Authors love feedback!)

Reading is like . . . chocolate?

Mood of the day - whimsical.

I'm on the home stretch on the novel I'm currently writing. The words are flowing like a waterfall, although I have to admit, the closer you get to that last page, the less water is falling. There's something about reaching "the end" that makes you pull back so that you can savor those last, final moments with your characters, before you wave them on to their happily ever after.

I wish I had the same problem when I read. I recently received an advanced reading copy of Jude Deveraux's next book in her Nantucket Bride's series titled True Love. The book was in the neighborhood of 450 pages and I started it on a Sunday. 300 pages later, my dear husband looks at me and says, "why are you reading it all in one day? Don't you want to make it last if you're enjoying it?" The obvious answer is yes, I do. The real answer? Reading is like chocolate. When it's good chocolate, you want to eat it all at once. Binge eating.When it's not so good, that's when I struggle to keep going. I put the book down when my husband pointed out to me that I'd been bingeing, but I kept reaching for it. "It'll taste better if I savor it." Yeah, well. I have a 70 minute commute on an express train into the city and when I rode in on Monday, the book didn't stand a chance.

As an author, writing the end of a book is less like eating chocolate and more like sending your child off to college. The longer you can delay that parting, the better, and yet, your child has to make their own way in the world. I still have a ways to go before I reach, "the end," but I'm getting close. I have been making the most of my time off from the day job to put the story down, between visiting family and tending to chores that have been ignored during busy season. The good/bad news is that even after I finish the story, there will be much work to do. This story has been flowing so fast that I'm making a mess of it just to get it down. Good news is that I will be spending more time with my characters before I have to let them go for real, cleaning up the mess. Bad news is that this is the grunt work part of writing.

In case you missed my barrage of posts and tweets, Mist on the Meadow is free for download for a limited time at select online book sellers. Please take advantage of the Memorial Day offer, share this steal-of-a-deal with your friends, and when you finish reading it, leave a review at your favorite book site (authors love feedback). Details are in the previous post.

Time to finish writing.

Happy Memorial Day

On holiday from the day job this week and busy writing, but wanted to take a quick minute to let y'all know that in honor of Memorial Day, Mist on the Meadow will be available for free download from selected sellers. I hope you'll take advantage of this limited time offer, and after you've had a chance to read it, leave a review at your favorite book source for other readers to consider.

Free right now at

Kobo Books

Apple/iTunes bookstore

Smashwords

Barnes & Noble 

Sony Reader Store

Unfortunately, Amazon will only allow free books under an exclusivity agreement (and not everyone has a Kindle), but you can download the Kindle version at Smashwords.

So what are you waiting for?  Go download a copy now! Can't wait to hear what you think of it.

Sportsmanship - "Basketball Jones"

Okay, I'm airing a grievance. Mostly because I don't have another brilliant idea for my blog today and this is something that annoyed me.

I'm a sports fan. I participated in sports when I was younger, and I still do occasionally  The sport du jour is basketball. I'm a fair weather Bulls fan. That weather this year has been partly sunny/partly cloudy. As such, I have not been watching every game, up to and including the playoffs. And now for the rant.

Basketball is a non contact sport. But I guess someone forgot to tell the NBA. I do NOT like watching the Indiana Thugs -er, Pacers for this very reason. Where the game calls for quickness and skill, they substitute body blocks and fouls. Granted, each player is allowed six cheap shots per game, but Indiana has players whose main goal is to foul the other team.  Not score, not block shots, but foul.

(Steve Mitchell/USA Today)

My Bulls gutted it out to the second round of the playoffs, where the Miami Heat were given free license to mug and abuse them. If that isn't enough, the fans have taken to abusing the athletes, too. That's just wrong. I'm not saying the Bulls are completely blameless, but certainly the referees are more willing to turn a blind eye to premier players who, rather than dazzling us with their brilliant play, have stooped to schoolyard mugging. And the fans support this by flipping off Joakim Noah for refusing to be mugged.

I watch professional sports to see professionalism. I understand physical play, but don't want to watch an athlete who is consistently a step short make up for it by being a brute. Take it like a man. If you're beaten, step up your own game. And then to have this behavior reinforced by classless fans lowers the level of this spectator sport one more rung.

Do you know how much they charge for seats to see the Bulls in Chicago? (A lot, in case you don't know the answer - I happen to know tickets are considerably cheaper in Milwaukee.) And they pack the stadium. But I have no interest in paying those prices for an exhibition in taking cheap shots from someone who can't keep up. The NBA needs to school the referees on calling the same fouls on all players, regardless of their "star" status.

Don't get me wrong, I admire LeBron's skills. The Heat has skill. That's one of the reasons I don't understand when they stoop so low. Play the game and stop the brawling.  The Heat plays the Thugs next. May the best team survive.

There.  I feel better now.

Kudos to the Bulls for their grit this season. Short handed, injured and then abused, they put on a good show.

And now back to our regularly scheduled program . . .

When Characters in a Book Die - Coping with Grief

This has been a sad sort of week. Two more souls have gone to sit beside God, and the superstitions/wives' tale that death comes in three is lingering. I lost a niece last week, she was the same age as my daughter, and then a friend from work who has been the epitome of grace through her struggle with cancer. My thoughts and prayers go out to those families as they deal with the loss of their loved ones.

I dealt with death briefly in Mist on the Meadow, letting a likable character die, but he was old and past his time. I'm sure readers expected it. As I write my latest, I also have a dying character in the book, and that is presented up front. Because I like to touch on those "what if" paranormal moments, in this book, the situation is designed for that paranormal moment. A sort of ghostly encounter. But as I write it, and also deal with the recent losses in my own, real, everyday world, it strikes me that with two books in a row where likable characters are dying, I need to make sure the next one is NOT about death and dying. Seems to me that looks a lot like writing Cinda's story (from Living Canvas). She's a spunky, over-the-top, semi-unlikable character, which is why I feel she deserves a chance for readers to understand her.

For my own part, I generally avoid reading Nicholas Sparks novels, because although his stories are moving, touching, poignant, someone always dies, and it's always quite heart wrenching. I like the HEA (Happily Ever After) type. So even when he writes HEA for his characters, it's only after surviving deeply crippling emotions.  Yeah, I don't like to go there. It's like picking at a scab for me.

So I got to thinking (as I'm writing this book) about ways to cope with grief, and I realized I need to add some levity to the situation. Have you ever seen an over the top reaction to grief? Someone that did something so bizarre that you had to laugh, or wanted to laugh but didn't out of respect for their feelings? Everyone has different coping mechanisms, and I know that in my most recent experience with losing someone in my immediate family, some of the responses I saw creeped me out just a little bit, but I understood that for some people, that's how they deal, or don't deal, with the situation.

I'd love to hear your experiences. They just might show up in this latest book! (which, for the record, is very tentatively titled Shoemaker and the Elf Counsel).

Spring has Sprung

I don't know about you, but every year, it seems to me like spring arrives virtually overnight. I wake up one morning and the trees are in bud, the flowers are in bloom, the grass is a brilliant emerald green.  Almost like the first overnight snowfall, it happens silently and presents you with a scenic wake-up call.

Spring is my favorite time of year. It's when everything returns from a long winter's nap, stretches and fills the world with color. It also feels, to me, like the time when I emerge from my own cocoon.

When I was young, I had an accident that happened right at the onset of spring which kept me in the house for a period of weeks. During my convalescence, the changeover from dull and gray and dead to vibrant and green and blooming had occurred, like a rebirth. That was the first time I "really" paid attention.  The transition is usually very subtle.

Now, I work in a seasonal job that takes over my life from February through the end of April (trumpet fanfare please, busy season is OVER), so the transition is just as miraculous for me now as it was when I was a kid.  For three solid months I have been sleepwalking through my life to meet deadlines, barely noticing the changes in the weather outside, and yet I've been snapping these pictures as Spring once again thrills me with its arrival.  The hyacinths in the garden, the magnolia tree in bloom, and the other picture (you're wondering what the heck that is?) was hail, but the significant thing about that picture was that after I snapped it to say, "hey, look at the hail," I noticed the lawn beyond the deck.  Brilliant. Emerald. Green.  Had I not snapped the picture, I wouldn't have noticed, but once I did, it was a stop and look moment.

Some people prefer the colors of Autumn.  Do you have a favorite season?