Oh blessed routine!

Today's Mood: Tired. Today's Music: Matchbox Twenty--All your reasons. Today's Writing: Black Dragon--chapter 2. Today's Quote:

"Like dreaming, reading performs the prodigious task of carrying us off to other
worlds." -Victor Null

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The only way I got out of bed this morning was by grabbing the scruff of my neck with both hands and dragging myself out from under the covers. I can't believe how dark it is at 5:30 a.m.! But writing every day makes the dark hours and loss of sleep worth it.

My office smells of orange blossoms and paper. I drink my cappuccino, turn on my music, get out my computer and then I'm gone. Gone into the dank basement room of Sera the dragon fighter. Gone into a world of darkness, soul-searing pain, and blood. Dreams and visions of blood.

It's always a bit of a shock when the lights go on in the main library, and it is time for me to go back to my world of books, technology, kids, and teachers. But I'm happy. The revision is going slow but I think good--although the backlash of thoughts/cravings/emotions is quite unsettling. Thought I put all that behind me many, many years ago. Never knew how long habits could hang around!

Oh how I love writing! Anyone else going to the Fall Glen Lake Retreat? How about entering the PW art show? I (foolishly) said I would and now I'm stressing because I don't have anything good enough to put in an art show. Silly, silly me.

Anyone reading anything interesting? I'm over halfway through The Shack. Now that's a book that makes you think! And I consumed Breaking Dawn in one gulp (which included very little sleep!). Happy writing!

Moving forward

Today's Mood: Comfortable. Today's Music: U2--The Joshua Tree. Today's Writing: Chapter seven of IFFY. Today's Quote:

"I write when I'm inspired, and I see to it that I'm inspired at nine o'clock every morning." -Peter de Vries, quoted in The Writer, June 1994

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I read a good book yesterday--The Looking Glass Wars. It is the true story of Alyss in Wonderland, and it celebrates the power of imagination--both for good and for bad. Besides being an entertaining book, it made me excited to get working on my own story. I've had a hard time maintaining a scheduled writing time this summer, and too many days off makes it hard for me to get into the story when I do finally sit down to write. Of course, all that will change in a few weeks when school starts again--and with it a scheduled writing time. But for those of you facing the same difficulty, I read a great blog post on how to overcome writer's block on Diana Peterfund's blog. Check it out here, and if you have tried any of these or other methods and found them useful, let us know.

Hope you have all been writing.

Spring--not hardly

Today's Mood: Preoccupied. Today's Music: U2--at the moment. Today's writing: research for IFFY. Today's Quote:

Originality is not seen in single words or even sentences. Originality is the
sum total of a man's thinking or his writing. Isaac Bashevis Singer, New York Times Magazine, Mar. 12, 1978US (Polish-born) Jewish author (1904 - 1991)

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Hello all! Just got back from Georgia and what a climate shock! I felt like I was coming back to Christmas, not Easter. At least I don't mind being back at work--other than the early morning thing.

I have to be honest and admit I didn't write even one word during vacation. I read two books though. Good stuff. King of the Pygmies and Cage of Stars. Both deal with schizophrenia. I had no idea there could be very mild cases that are manageable without meds. Of course, Cage of Stars showed the other end of the spectrum--murder.

Have any of you set up writing as a business? You know, there are things I could write off--conferences, mailings....--but of course, I have no way of knowing when I'll actually sell any of my writing. I've got two novels I'm sending out hither and yon, but as we all know, it could take awhile to get published. But it doesn't really seem fair that you can only write off expenses for the year you get published--I mean, come on! It takes all those prior mailings to get there.

What do you do? How long can a business show a loss before the IRS gets annoyed? I mean, yes, it is a hobby, but I do hope to sell something someday--not that I'm in it for the money. I've read enough to know better.

Oh, and how's the writing going? I have small group tonight and I'm excited. Hope it helps get me going again. I'm stuck in a quagmire of do I totally change the trigger event for my story because it isn't very original, or do I just go with it.

Books

Today's Mood: Composed. Today's Music: Tori Amos. Today's Writing: Revised/Edited The Mary Monologue. (Over the weekend I printed out cover letter and Black Dragon manuscript to send out to another publisher today.) Today's Quote:

One out of every four people in this country is mentally unbalanced. Think of
your three closest friends and if they seem okay then you're the one. -Abigail
Van Buren

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I love to read good books--books that make me forget who and where I am. Books that make me a bad parent. Books like Twilight and New Moon by Stephenie Meyer. I finished reading these books and feel both inspired to work on my own writing and sure that I'll never write a book nearly as absorbing. These books are Young Adult--that's most of what I read since I'm a middle and high school librarian--and though they deal with vampires, they are more suspense/romance than horror. The energy that runs through them is what I find so amazing. Plus I love the relationships that are examined within the book.

Last night I picked up Anne Lamont's book called Plan B: further thoughts on faith. Looks interesting, but I need to finish Writing Down the Bones by Natalie Goldberg. So many books and so little time to read! Librarians are constantly frustrated. (how's that for a slogan?)

Anyone else read anything good lately?

The benefits of taking a shower

Today's Mood: Exhilarated. Music: Alan Parson's Project: Vulture Culture. Writing: revising Katie's notes to self (each chapter starts with one). Quote:

The uncreative mind can spot wrong answers, but it takes a creative mind to spot
wrong questions. --Anthony Jay

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If I could take 5 or 6 showers a day I would be so much more creative. For some reason, I get my very best ideas in the shower. Maybe the warm water unclogs my brain cells or something. Heather Sellers in her book Page After Page talks about doing some task like driving your car that keeps the monkey in your mind busy but allows you to think--like taking a shower! You should try it if you get stuck.

So last night I'm taking my shower and I get this cool idea of how I want to do the chapter headers--for lack of a better word. Each chapter starts with a note from Katie to herself--sort of a what she learns from the events in the following chapter kind of thing. Anyway, my readers thought I should make those stand out somehow--distinguish them from the regular chapter. So I got this great idea (or at least it seemed so in all the steam of the shower) to have those notes to self appear on lined paper with a hand-writing type font. That way they look like real notes.

For awhile I thought I was going to have to do the old fashioned get a piece of notebook paper, write the note, tape it on the page, then photocopy it. But fortunantly, I found out it could all be done on the computer. Find an image of notebook paper, insert that in word, put a tranparent text box on it and pick a hand-writing like font. How cool is that?

I still have to see what my small group says about it, but I was pretty psyched this morning--even got out of bed without hitting snooze! (that's big for me)

I also have an exciting idea for something I want to do in my next book--but I can't tell you about it now. It has to perk awhile (like a good batch of soup.) So, I'm going into the weekend jazzed up and hoping to sneak some time to write--although I only have 17 days left to buy the rest of the Christmas presents.

Online shopping here I come!