I know I haven’t posted all week and apologize for such gross neglect, but I am having a bit of relapse from the surgery and trying really hard to stay down. I can’t afford to let some stupid pain get the better of me. Life is short and i refuse to live mine in agony. I made it to page 31 in the new novel and had to call it quits for a few days.

I’m thrilled with the novel though. I really do love writing. Some writers love to have written, but really don’t like the process. For me the process is redemption and release. There are some authors who have a very well scripted outline. I don’t do that. I wish I did sometimes, but my mind works best with a keyboard under my hands or a pen in my fingers. I love having the characters surprise me with what they do next . . . not that I don’t have a goal in mind or an idea of the ending. I always know the last scene as I am starting the first . . . I just don’t always know the journey until the minute I write it. Yesterday (in the fifteen minutes I allowed myself to write) my character’s mother was attacked by a paranormal entity. I have no idea how my character will resolve the situation and truly cannot wait to find out.

I almost forgot to announce the fact that I completed a new novel just before the LTUE symposium. The Day My Subconscious Betrayed Me is officially finished! I’m pretty excited to have another book under my belt. This book is a romantic comedy. I needed the levity that only a romantic comedy could give. And since I am what I am and have a goal to complete three novels this year, I’ve started immediately on the Nightmare Givers which is a fantasy YA/middle grade (it’ll likely be what Stacy Whitman calls slippage, meaning it will cross over in age groups).  I’m on page eleven so far and loving the mystery of my own story. I told my husband this will be my Newbery book. I can dream, can’t I?

I will be putting up the first chapter of The Day My Subconscious Betrayed Me in a few days.

Fortune of the day: If you must choose between two evils, pick the one you haven’t tried before.

I was invited to be a participating guest at LTUE. The cool thing about being a writer is networking with other writers and meeting people you respect and admire. It’s also an incredible way to connect with your readers and aspiring writers. Granted, my back hurts terribly in spite of the many breaks I took to lie down and rest, but I don’t believe the pain shone through while I was speaking on panels . . . at least not too much.

So now I am to name dropping. What fun is it to meet and know cool people if you can’t brag about it a little

I was honored to speak with such people as Dave Wolverton/Farlund who has a new installment of his Of Mice and Magic series coming out. James Dashner, who has a new series coming out with Shadow Mountain in the spring of 2008. Gloria  Skurzynski, Julie Czerneda, Stacy Whitman (editor at Mirrorstone books), Eric James Stone, Eric Swedin, Howard Taylor, Nancy Fulda, Dan Willis, Brandon Sanderson, and Robert Defendi.

I also met an incredible artist Kevin Wasden. Definitely check out his website and see his work. There’s a good possibility he and I will be working on a children’s series together and I am pretty stoked to be associated with a person of such talent.

I have a few pictures, but my mind is pretty clouded with pain killers right now as I recuperate from the weekend and I can’t figure out how to post them. That’ll have to be a post for a later date.

Fortune of the day: Don’t worry about what people think, they don’t do it very often anyway.

I know. I KNOW I’m a creep, but i hate valentine’s day. I think it’s incredibly lame to HAVE to show your significant other how much you love them on one day filled with pink and red hearts. Isn’t that what anniversaries are for? I admit as a child, I loved valentine’s day. We’d come home with pink frosted cookies and a sack of candy . . . What’s not to like?  As an adult, I hate the color pink. There is not one single pink thing in my closet. I’m not even all that fond of red. And I don’t need the national committee of calendar makers to remind me to love my spouse. So I respectfully decline participation in the day’s festivities. I do not obligate my spouse to buy me flowers or to buy me chocolates. We own a grocery store for Heaven’s sake. If I want chocolate, I know where to get it.  If I want flowers, I can look on my counter where I have my oregano plants blooming. For those of you who, like me, think the day is more hot air than fills all those balloons being given out today, I’d like you to join me in a poem. I have no idea who wrote it, but I’ve used it as my salutations for this dreadful day for years.

I awoke to a world of pink and red

And took all my effort to not go back to bed.

There are hearts and cards, flowers, and balloons

Given and written and received by baffoons

Ridiculous poetry absurd and trite

Written by lovers late in the night

Frosted pink cookies shaped like hearts

The card companies profiting from marketing arts

Everyone thinking that love can be bought

Wrapped up in packages and costing a lot

Stuffed bears and candy, singles despair

To be alone on this day; to have no one care

But not me . . . I decline. Yes, I’ve learned to be cautious

I proclaim it to all: Valentines makes me nauseous.

Fortune for the day: Skip flowers and cards this year and give your wife a real gift. No man has ever been shot while doing the dishes.                        

I think I’m schizophrenic. I’d have to be. Voices scream for my attention at all hours of the day and I wonder if I only write to stave off life in a long-sleeved white jacket. I really think writers are psychos who use literature in lieu of medication. I am eight days from completion of my new book (at least if I am a good girl and stay with my daily goals) But I’m already plotting ahead to a new manuscript. It’s almost a betrayal to the characters who—as yet—live in unresolved lives, yet I can’t stop myself from thinking of these new characters and wondering what kind of lives they live. Fickle heart of the writer. 

Naturally, since I am so close to completing this novel, I am waxing terrified that the manuscript sucks rocks and will never see the light of day in printed and bound form, yet I move forward with writing. Being a writer means walking the fine wire between ego-mania and manic depression. I hope they let me have the remote during community time in the mental hospital . . . 

My friend, Heather Moore (who is truly an incredible writer) blogged about a romance writers conference she attended. She shares some insights she learned about the craft of writing romance and I thought it was interesting enough to take a peek at: Writers conference  Fortune of the day: Get forgiveness now. Tomorrow you may not feel guilty. 

I finally allowed myself the time to finish the Ender’s series by Orson Scott Card. Although I finished the Shadow series last year and several of Scott’s other books over time, The Ender series has struck to my deepest core. It was written like a song, beautiful and sad, hopeful and witty. Speaker For the Dead was my favorite of the four books, but I like the humanity of each of them in their turn. I do NOT suggest reading Xenocide unless you have the chaser book, Children of the Mind. It will leave you annoyed if you have to wait. Scott’s a great writer (albeit a little morbid) and he makes me a better writer when I read his work.

If you haven’t read the Ender series, may I suggest it to you?

Fortune for the day: One of history’s great lessens–Though Nothing is only sometimes a good thing to do, it is almost always a clever thing to say.

My youngest asked me how my back became broken. Feeling a little playful, I told him it was because he, his brother, and sister stepped on way too many sidewalk cracks and broke their momma’s back. Instead of smiling or laughing, he frowns and with a very creased brow, says, “I didn’t mean to! Is it really my fault????” 

A good reminder of which of my children is sensitive and should not be teased too often. Not that the child has a chance; his dad is a chronic teaser. We’ll toughen him up and make middle school more bearable. I did give him a hug and tell him I was only kidding.

In writerly news, I am on the last stretch of the romantic comedy I’m working on. Now that the haze of drug induced stupor is disappearing, I can get it finished. The finish up will be a slow process, since being at my computer for more than three minutes at a time hurts me, I have to be really careful. But even if I only produce ten words a day . . . that’s ten words further along than I was.

And my fortune for the day: If you’re paranoid, chances are there’s a good reason.