Random Acts of Kindness

At the risk of sounding a bit like Pollyanna, I've just been thinking about how small the world really is, and how much potential it has for eventually coming together in peace and accord. The illustrations of this might be tiny, random acts of kindness, but they do happen, and taken together it seems that there might be hope for the human race, after all.

While hatred might start from a tiny disagreement that eventually grows into an argument, then to a clan feud, then to a civil war, then to a war between nations, so too does peace grow into an unstoppable force for good. It starts small, from a simple smile to a compliment to a genuine wish for good things to happen for someone other than yourself. From there it could snowball into groups helping other groups, states working with other states, and eventually to countries lobbying together for the good of the planet as a whole.

Today my city announced its intent to comply with the Kyoto accord. Maybe our country didn't embrace it, and maybe too many politicians muttered too many doubts about statistics and scientific analyses, but city by city, state by state, our country is beginning to wake up, to say yes to humans taking responsibility for our own actions and for our future. Simply by one person standing up and being willing to be seen doing some good in the world, others are encouraged to follow.

My latest personal experience of this was when the very nice garda from Ireland took a few minutes to reply to my email question and even wish me well on my novel, and three other very nice writers on the FM board replied to my post asking for Irish email question-answering help. Without their responses, I would have made certain mistakes in one of my manuscripts--mistakes that I would much prefer to avoid. Does this affect the state of the world as we know it? Well, yes, I think so. Those simple acts of human kindness and consideration made my day, and quite possibly my manuscript. If I'm very lucky, that manuscript may one day help someone else, even if it only helps them while away a few hours in an airplane, or cheers them up when they're down and want some good escapist fiction. Small things, folks. But small things that may one day add up to something much bigger than the sum of its parts.

Remember that commercial on TV where one person saves another person's life, then that person goes on to save another's, and so on until the chain reconnects just like a huge circle? That's the kind of unstoppable force I mean. With that kind of force, starting with those tiny, simple, random acts of kindness, we may go on to change the world.

Try it today. Smile at someone you meet out shopping. Compliment someone. Thank your cashier and wish them a good day even though it's not part of your job. Throw out a lucky penny for someone to find. Let someone into the lane in front of you in the middle of rush hour traffic. Reaffirm someone's faith that there are good, kind strangers out there in the world, rather than only hidden enemies.

Think about it.

The Last Puzzle Piece

I've been working on "Shifts of Perception," the third book of my epic fantasy trilogy, and I've hit the halfway point. After all the interruptions I've had over the last few months, it feels great to know I've almost done it--almost finished an entire trilogy! When the Moxie met today, we agreed that the last scene in Chapter 9 needs a little bit of tweaking, but that shouldn't be too hard to fix.

Despite the fact that I have Shifts plotted and ready to roar through the last half, I've continued to chew on the plot for my urban fantasy, Beyond the Pale. Up until about a week and a half ago, I had nothing but what seems like a sound premise, a promising first three chapters, and a solid plan for the ending, but not much middle. At first blush, that sounds like bad news for a plot, but the "Girls in the Basement," as my crit partners call the muses in a writer's subconscious, weren't ready to give up yet. Ready to coax, coerce or force a complete plot from the ether, I wrote out all the scene cards for the beginning chapters I had finished already, the ones for the next one or two chapters I had already plotted, and the ones for the ending of the book. Then I worked on possibilities for bridging the gap by working my way inward from both ends. This sounds like a no-brainer, but for me, it wasn't. My husband pointed out that bridges are built by starting on both sides of the gap to be bridged, and the two ends are worked toward each other until they meet in the middle--and no, I didn't forget about the supports you need in order to keep things from falling when they start to hang out in midair!

Over the last week, I made plotting Pale my priority, and by Saturday, I had all but one major issue pretty much figured out. But that one issue was a biggie, not easily solved--or so I thought. Finally, pretty much frustrated, I just asked (don't ask who I asked--call it the Universe, the muses, the collective unconscious, whoever) for the answer to the dilemma. I asked for it aloud, as though I was talking to some childhood invisible friend. Within minutes, the solution dropped into my brain like the last piece of the puzzle, as though I had indeed gotten an answer from beyond. The subconscious mind is an amazing thing indeed. Ask and you shall receive. The answer was obvious, perfect, and so simple I'm shocked that it hadn't occurred to me before. So if you ever see me talking to myself on a street corner in the future, I'm probably asking for some elusive plot point.

However I got it, the result is tangible, written out in scene cards and stuck to my wall, and the plot for the urban fantasy is actually here, real, solid, and workable. Two Novembers ago, I told my friend that I couldn't plot or write urban fantasy. Apparently I was wrong. I can. I am. Who'da thunk?

Urban fantasy is hot right now, they say. Publishers are looking for it; it's selling. And I happen to have the plot for one now. Maybe that'll be the right combination to get my foot through the door at last. But I still wouldn't write it if I didn't love it or if it didn't resonate for me. As much as I want to get published, I know that I personally can't do my best work if I can't really connect with the story or the genre, which is why I'm not writing YA right now. I can't force myself to care about it, or perhaps I simply haven't found the right storyline yet. The epic fantasy is great, I love it and still believe in it, and I'll finish the trilogy, of course. I'll probably go on to write more epic fantasy in the future--I'm sure I won't be able to stay away from it entirely. But I also happen to have found a story I love in the more popular field of urban fantasy, so now I get to take a risk that might just pay off. Now that I've found the last piece of my new plot, we'll see what happens.

The Peaceful Warrior

I'd seen the book "The Peaceful Warrior", but never actually read it. However, I just saw the movie and it generated lots of thought, as I'm sure it was meant to. It's no wonder our city chose to show it at the art movie theater; this isn't one of those movies where you just go, laugh, applaud or otherwise enjoy and never have to think too much. This one's meant to make you pay attention and then go home and rethink your life.

That's right, Obi Wan.

How many of us go through our lives without actually living them? Do we pay attention to the minutiae of things and people around us, or do we pass them without ever allowing them to really touch us? Maybe Dan Millman is right. Maybe many of us aren't so much living as just going through the motions, chasing all the wrong dreams. Or chasing the right dreams for the wrong reasons.

This is especially true of writing, but it's complicated. If the one thing you really, truly love is writing and you're not in it for the money, you've got it made. But what if your life purpose is to share your stories, share your truths and visions with other people and you can only do that by getting published? Sure, writing makes you happy, but is it doing any good in the world if no one outside of your family and crit group ever gets to read it? Maybe. Maybe just sharing it with a finite group of people is enough. But if Dan Millman hadn't gotten The Peaceful Warrior published, how many people would have been able to share his incredible experience or read the story that only he could tell? Not too many, in the grand sceme of things. So in a sense, we have a bit of a paradox. You do the thing you're destined to do, the one thing that really gives you goose bumps, but you never get to share it with more than about eight people unless you just publish it online, which still doesn't reach half the people you hope to reach. You write because you love it, but you also feel deep down in your soul that there's supposed to be more to it. It isn't supposed to be just for you.

Ok, I'm talking about myself here, but I'm sure there are hundreds to thousands of other writers out there who also see themselves in the above paragraph. So how do we address the paradox?

Would you still write even if you were never to get published? Would you actually be able to just set down your pen or leave your keyboard and never attack anything more ambitious than email? If the answer is yes, then you have it easy. But if the answer is no, then you already know you love it too much to stop. Someday they'll probably find you permanently asleep at your keyboard, hopefully after having typed the last line of the last chapter of your very last book. If that sounds like you, then you're pretty much stuck. You'll have to keep writing, and giving it up just isn't an option, publisher's contract or no.

So where does that leave you? What would the peaceful warrior's answer be? I don't know. I don't have all the answers or even a good fraction of them. But maybe it would be something like this: Maybe it doesn't really matter whether you become a famous novelist. Maybe that's the totally wrong goal to shoot for. If, like Dan learned, the journey is far more important than the destination, then maybe it's about putting everything you are into every keystroke. Maybe it's about being fully present with and committed to every word you write. Maybe it's about never doing less than your absolute best, no matter what the rewards might or might not be. If you focus on the minutiae of your writing, on honing your craft, on doing what you love and making every word a labor of love, then maybe all the rest of it will fall into place, if that's what's supposed to happen for you. And if it's not, then where are your regrets? Are you proud of the job you did? Did you love it, did it bring you joy? Then you've made at least one person happy--maybe the most important person. And if you find joy in doing what you love, then you're sure to bring joy to others, simply because joy seems to multiply itself when turned outward. As above, so below. Or another way to think of it: as within, so without.

Maybe it works. Either way, it sure beats the heck out of being depressed because none of the books in your shelves have your name on the spine.

Cats and Dogs

We've had an interesting couple of weeks. We'd been talking about getting a dog for some time, and finally we decided to just do it. So for about a week, we surfed all the adoption sites, followed up leads and came up with a short list of potential dogs for adoption. One night last week I told my cat that the next day, we'd be bringing a dog home. That night at about 2:30 a.m., he went out catting, and the next morning he still hadn't returned.

We had found a dog at our local humane society shelter, a beautiful 1-year-old German shepherd who had been found wandering in late July, no tags, no collar, starving and ill. We visited her one day, put her on a 24-hour hold, and brought her home the next day. She was 2 days post-op from being spayed, and still recovering from that and her previous illness, but she gave us all a big kiss when we came back to pick her up. As soon as we got her home, she settled right down and by now her personality is beginning to emerge. The humans who'd had her before hadn't housetrained her, hadn't taught her any commands, hadn't played with her...you get the picture. She loves my kids and is blossoming with us. This is a smart dog. In two days, she'd learned her name, (we named her Andromeda, Rommie for short) come, sit, and lay down. She's still working on stay and heel. She loves living in the "den" with us and being part of our family. But there is one thing in our household that she does not love, and that is the cat.

Back to the cat. Moonshadow must have had some horrific adventure, because he was missing all day long after we brought the dog home--very bad timing, that! I was devastated and thought I'd lost him, so on what was supposed to be a happy day with the dog, I was mourning my cat of 14 years. Trying not to blubber in the neighbor's faces, I walked street after street, distributing pictures and phone numbers so people could call me if they found him. Then that morning at 2:20 a.m., I woke up thinking about him. 10 minutes later, I heard the cat door, ran downstairs, and found a very happy, very hungry feline eating big kibbles out of the dog's new dish.

We welcomed Moonshadow home, then brought Rommie down to introduce them...and they hated each other on sight, of course. So we've been trying to acclimate them to each other gradually, and I hope things will still work out. It would not be fair for my beautful, beloved kitty to lose his home of 14 years just because a big puppy now lives here, and it would also not be fair to Rommie to lose her new home just because my grumpy old cat can't keep himself from growling at her and pushing her buttons. So for now, we're keeping them separated and trying to introduce them gradually. Wish us luck, and any tips would be welcome!

Sustainable Websites

I've been doing a lot of surfing of ecology-related websites recently. Mostly, I'm shopping or at least surfing for organic clothing and natural alternatives for items we use everyday and dump into the landfills at a truly alarming rate. I even found a site or two that sell eating utensils made from corn fiber. Really. They look just like the plastic forks, knives and spoons you're used to using at picnics, but if you toss these corn fiber ones out with your compost, they'll actually biodegrade.

I love the idea of a sustainable planet. I am a treehugger. There, I'm out. Now you see my hairy, scary side. I love green businesses and green solutions for all kinds of problems. I'm planning to have my car converted to green fuel just as soon as we get a station in town that sells it, and in the meantime, I buy fuel with the 10% ethanol in it. One of my friends has a Prius, (a gas/electric hybrid car) and the in-town milage is just amazing--much better than what I can get in my car, by at least--what--three times the miles per gallon? Organic fiber clothes just plain flat feel better on the skin, and our decision to buy into an organic garden co-op for the summer has proven economical and completely delicious. My husband recently bought a bunch of those flashlights that you can wind up and don't need batteries for; they work great and the whole family thinks they're genious, especially the girls who like to read under the covers at night. And then there's the way-gorgeous mineral makeup. Back to nature and loving it, and I haven't even had to start looking like a granola girl in the process.

There is one gripe I have, though, and it doesn't just apply to websites that sell organic products. At the end of June I placed an order for something and have now been waiting three weeks for it to arrive. The company is in the U. S., but I've had faster shipping from Europe and Canada, thanks! A couple of days ago I called them to ask what had happened to my merchandise and they told me that the stuff was backordered. Now, I'd already sent them an email two days before that asking about the order, and they hadn't answered that. Then when I called them, they didn't answer the extension for customer service, so I had to call the orders line. Then when they checked on my order, they said it would probably be another two weeks before the stuff came in and would be sent to me, bringing the number of weeks since purchase up to five at least. I ordered the same product from another company on Friday and they said they'd mail it out on Monday. Much bettter on first glance, but their website wasn't secure so I had to order by phone. Already had one card hacked, thanks, don't need another one compromised. I don't care how bad somebody out there wants to buy himself a leather bustier and a sweet new pickup--I can't afford to pay for them! So after all that ranting, here's the actual gripe:

When you have a web-based shop, make sure your order form is secure! And while you're at it, make sure that when any of your products is backordered, you've posted it on the item page to warn the consumer! Let me know that I'll have to wait forever to get my product so I can look elsewhere and not have to waste my time or yours on needless follow ups.

Sustainable organic products for sale: potentially worth every penny paid for them. Sustainable websites: priceless.

Progress and Pirates

I've been making some progress on Shifts of Perception--I'm nearly at the halfway point and hope to get a lot further over the next six weeks. If I could finish it entirely, I'd be very happy.

Real Life has been interfering a lot lately, but as the kids' school year is over, I'm about to get a shot at some real progress.

We finally took the kids to see Pirates of the Caribbean 2, Dead Man's Chest. We loved it and are looking forward to the third one. I won't post any spoilers here, but...if you haven't seen it yet and are planning to, make sure you stay all the way through the ending credits. We left the theater before the end of the credits on X-Men and later regretted it. Today we stayed to the end on Pirates and...didn't regret it. 'Nuf said.

A Great Loss

I just got the news via Publisher's Lunch that Jim Baen has passed away. My heart goes out to his close friends and loved ones at this time; I wish them peace and healing. His death is a great loss for the SF community as well. Here's a link to one online article where author David Drake has written a heartfelt obituary for him.

Two At Once

I'm nearly finished with Chapter 3 of my new urban fantasy. I am about to start Chapter 8 of the third novel in my epic fantasy trilogy. I'm managing to hop back and forth between the two of them. I just wish I could make faster progress. I'd have to write a chapter of each book each week if I want to finish both by the end of the summer. At the rate things are going, I won't manage it, but we'll see. I'll at least have one of them done by the end of the summer, and the other will be close. Which will be which, I have no idea.

Amazon knows about me?

Somehow Amazon heard about my miniature books and has posted a page for each. The only info they have for each one is its title and the publication year, and of course there are no reviews or ordering buttons. I guess the pages are there so that if anyone had one they wanted to sell, they could do it...I guess. But that scenario is highly unlikely since every one I've ever sold went into the hands of collecters, and all between the years of 1999 and now. Amazon says they're out of print and limited in availability. Well, technically none are out of print since even the limited edition print runs can still be ordered from my website, but availability is limited because I make each book by hand and personally sew it into its "unknown binding".

I have no idea how Amazon found me, but the Huz and I had a few grins today over the fact that they had. My poor little mini books. I could contact Amazon and let them know that I have a few to sell, but since none of them are actually sewn together yet, that could be a problem if they wanted to stock them. So far my lack of stock hasn't been an issue since I only tend to get orders for a few at a time, but if I suddenly had to go into major production it would indeed be a problem. I'd have to drop everything else and just make little books as fast as possible. The sad part is, I could use the money. But if I went for the money just to get a little cash now, I wouldn't get the novels done, and the novels are my main focus anyway. It's the difference between the short term and the big picture. Sometimes we just have to stick it out and wait for that big ship to come in. Let's just hope there are no hurricanes in the meantime.

Salutes to Amazon, though, for being on the ball. If they bother to learn about and list authors of self-published one-inch-tall books, then it's no wonder they do such a big business. That's...like...just wow.

But if you really want to buy one of my minis, take a trip to the Pookatales Press website at http://www.pookatales.com and use my catalog, which allows you to make payment through PayPal. Unless you're ordering several of each book all at once, I can accommodate your order. And a little-known fact about these mini books is that three of them, A Perfect Irony, The Mer--A Treatise, and The Wolfhound actually take place in the same world as my Oantran Triad trilogy, currently being marketed to publishers in New York. If by some miracle my trilogy actually becomes well-known one day, then that would make these little minis sought-after collector's items.

Not a bad dream, that.

The World Around the Corner

Recently, a crit partner and I were discussing the possible reasons why so many people have responded so strongly to books like The DaVinci Code, the Anita Blake Series and a host of other recent thrillers, paranormal thrillers, and urban fantasy offerings. Looking at the situation a little more closely, we found that all of these have something in common.

All are set in the modern-day world, and while the degree to which a reader must suspend disbelief may greatly vary from book to book, even the ones with more fantastic elements like vampires or werewolves still manage to leave just this little hint of "What if". What if a werewolf lives on your street, and that dang dog that keeps howling off and on in the neighborhood isn't just a dog? What if you went to school with a descendant of Mary Magdalene and didn't even know it? What if the fey are alive and well and living in Cahokia, Illinois? Most of it sounds pretty unbelievable just to say it like that, but when you sit down and read those books, the what ifs suddenly get up close and personal. Suddenly as the vampire gets into the taxi and gives the driver an address on the outskirts of St. Louis, your brain begins to make a tiny leap of faith. What if? These stories are set in a world that looks very much like ours. The characters don't live in another century, they live in ours. They wear clothes like ours, buy similar takeout, and drive the same kinds of cars.

I think it's something about that extreme level of familiarity in the fictional world vs our own that makes a person's brain want to stretch just a little. After all, it's such a short step from our world into the world of those books, and when you start to think about it, none of us know for absolutely certain what's waiting around that next corner. For those of us drawn to fiction, especially when it's a comparatively realistic fiction, the temptation to wonder is just too irresistable. Scientists, after all, are already developing an "invisibility cloak" that bends light rays around itself. Most of us have heard that old saying, "Sufficiently advanced technology is indistinguishable from magic." There is no such thing as an invisibility cloak, right? Wrong, apparently. Sasquatch does not exist. Now tell that to the hundreds of people who have had encounters with one!

Is it such a great leap from our world to that other world right around the corner? Perhaps not. Perhaps we can regain that lost sense of wonder that we had as children. Children have a wonderful gift that many adults lack. They actually take time to consider a possibility before ingrained logic rules it out. They know they can fly, they just don't remember how! They're sure they heard reindeer on the roof. They know magic when they see it, and they know better than anyone that Neverland and Narnia aren't so very far away. Perhaps we adults like those thrillers, urban fantasies, and vampire novels so much because the very familiarity of the worlds in the books brings us just a tiny step closer to that sense of childish wonder that many of us lost so long ago.

First Impressions Count

I recently attended my first conference of the season, and even though it didn't have much to do with my genre, the classes were still incredibly interesting and helpful. Most of the published authors teaching the classes were likewise interesting and helpful, and for the most part, I enjoyed the day very much.

Of particular interest was a speaker who revealed ways in which to tell when someone is being deceptive. She said that most people are unable to lie directly, but instead they will skirt around the truth, modify it or qualify it in some way. Examination of statements made by various politicians and celebrities, when viewed through the lens of language, can prove very illuminating. Take a course on the techniques, and it won't take a psychic or a Deanna Troi to warn you when people you encounter are being less than truthful. It's fascinating stuff, but I can see where knowing these things might put an entirely different face on certain relationships and interactions! Cheating boyfriend? Two-faced coworker? Back-stabbing boss? Yikes!

This was one conference where the good things were very, very good and the bad thing was, well...just plain maddening. That brings me to a personal pet peeve and the reason for the title of this post.

I don't believe that any famous author attending a publicity event or conference should treat fans as though they were inferior species, no matter how tired or jet-lagged the author might be. I don't care whether that author had the worst day of his or her life or whether there'd been a death in the family, or whatever horrible extenuating circumstances could be brought to bear. When you accept an engagement of that nature, you are there as a goodwill ambassador for yourself, your book, and your publishing house. You do not snub fans, period. You do not have to become their best friend, but you do not treat them as if they are chewing gum stuck to your shoe. There is simply no excuse for such classless behavior, unless you want to qualify for an "Authors Behaving Badly" TV show. I also don't believe that said famous author should use any panel, class or keynote speech as a platform to proselytize his or her religious beliefs. If I wanted a sermon, I'd go to church. Needless to say, I was unimpressed and disappointed. I did not pay good money for this type of thing, and I will not be buying this author's books in the future.

If my books ever become well enough known that anyone would stand in line to see me, I hope that I always remember to treat people the way I'd want them to treat me. If I can't do that much, then I do not deserve the recognition in the first place. For that matter, it's the way everyone should behave, famous or not. At least, that's what I was raised to believe.

Elusive Dreams

Follow your dream. Isn't that what we're told to do by celebrities, self-help books, and optimists everywhere? I've said it before, and I've even believed it. But as you might have noticed from an earlier blog entry, it's harder to do it than to say it. I followed my dream of writing epic fantasy--have followed it for the past eight years and more, but I'm still not "there" yet.

I followed my dream, and it ran from me. I will finish the last book in my fantasy trilogy; I love it still, and it still holds the same allure for me that it always has. I love the characters, the insights on the human condition, the complexity of the relationships, and the world itself. I love the risks I've taken, the patterns I've woven together, all of it. But to my knowledge, it still hasn't sold. Epic fantasy continues to be a hard sell according to more than one agent blog I've read recently, and, sadly, according to my own agent as of the last time we spoke on the phone. I love epic fantasy. But even though I will finish the trilogy and leave it with Bob until someone wants to buy it, it seems that I might have to change genres slightly in order to break in.

That's where urban fantasy comes in. It was never my dream to write it, nor even to read it, but I'm hooked on at least two UF series now and willing to explore more. In fact, I'm compiling a to-be-read list that should serve as serious education about what's already out there. Armed with that knowledge, it's time to break out of this danged rut and find a way to get more than a toe in the door. It's time to bust the door open, even if I now have to leave my laboriously created world behind and write in the real-world-with-paranormal-elements to do it. Even if my a**-kicking female heroines have to do it in business suits or leather bustiers instead of bliauts and chain mail, I'm ready. I'll do whatever it takes to make that psychic's prediction come true. I may be a bit down, but I'm definitely not out.

If I can't catch my dream by chasing it, maybe I can get it to chase me instead. It works with cats....

Makeup That's Good For You

Warning! Blatent product endorsement to follow!

Makeup that's good for you? What? How can a makeup be good for your skin? Makeup isn't supposed to feel good, is it? It's just another of the many masks we women hide behind, meant to change the way we look and the way we feel about our appearance, but nowhere in that product description are the words "good for your skin." In fact, read the product labels of just about any readily available type of makeup today. Go on, I dare you. It's a chemical palette, right down to the dye and filler. Most of it feels terrible on the skin, too, or at least it does for me. In fact, I usually go without base because I have fairly dry skin, and when I put on my moisturizer and follow it with liquid foundation, it dries out again almost immediately. Yech!

The answer to my dilemma came in the form of an upper-middle-aged woman, blocking my cart in the narrow isle of our local co-op store while she tried on a new type of makeup. Not wanting to ask her to move her cart while her face was being made up, I stood there and watched. After a couple of minutes, the other woman had moved on and I was still there, asking the girl behind the counter to show me some of the blush. Next thing I knew, I had a foundation color as well, and things just sort of snowballed. See what happens when you block my cart?

Larenim comes in the form of micronized powdered minerals, so it's perfectly natural and works with your skin instead of against it. Apparently, mineral makeup is all the rage in hollywood right now, and I can see why. It actually feels like you're not wearing any makeup, and you can sleep in it. Good news for this night owl! It is a natural sunblock and won't clog pores--people have claimed that their skin improved after they switched over to this type of makeup. Even the foundation has only five--yes, five--ingredients, and their range of colors is amazing. Check it out, goth girls, there's also a special line just for you.

Yesterday I went to the co-op and was one of the lucky few to have a makeup consult with Kirsten Corcoran, the founder of Larenim. Nice lady, great product, deserving of kudos and more than a few of my hard-earned dollars. I even brought my older daughter, who made out like a bandit and came home with her own first set of foundation and blush.

Color me impressed.

Fragile

The Preakness is over, and Barbaro, the favorite to win, will soon be in surgery to try to save his life after he suffered a severe fracture of his right rear ankle. My heart is with him; I hope he makes it. I hate it when animals are injured, and I especially feel for racehorses. Bred for one thing and one thing only--they don't really have much of a life, if you think about it. Or maybe their lives are the embodiment of that whole success/failure mentality. When you win, you win big and no one can get enough of you. But that success, like the horse himself, is so fragile. You can lose it in an instant.

Reminds me of what we're all really here for. Maybe our successes as writers won't necessarily be measured by whether we make the NYT bestseller list, but by whether we write our hearts out anyway and give it everything we are. Maybe if we do that every day rain or shine, someone someday will remember. Just maybe.

Sure would like that blanket of flowers, though. Some of them are at least edible.

Toothy and Furry?

Ok, I'm bad. Here it is May and I haven't blogged in a while. I didn't intend to get this far behind--honest.

At first I thought I'd blog about recycling, but I think that's a soapbox for another day. Then I thought I'd blog about Larenim, this fantastic new mineral makeup I found last week. But that, too, is a subject for another day. Sooner or later we'll get into composting--just give me time. But none of the ecological issues are going anywhere tonight. Neither is my career, but again...just give me time.

Tonight I have a question for anyone who's willing to answer. From the people who read urban fantasy and paranormals (we're talking werewolves, were-anythings, vampires, witches, etc.), I'd really like to know what types of things you would like to see more of in the genre. Where do you see this genre heading? What direction do you wish it would go? Are you getting sick of vampires and werewolves yet? If so, what other type of urban fantasy would you love to see on the shelves? I really, really want to know, so please post comments!

I just finished reading a wonderful book by Patricia Briggs, "Moon Called". The main character is a skinwalker of Native American descent, and she can turn into a coyote on a moment's notice. Amazingly unique character--she had me hooked from the first moment. I venture to say that Patty Briggs is about to give Laurell K. Hamilton a serious run for her money. Now, mind you, Mercy the coyote skinwalker has absolutely no sex in this book, but there is plenty of sexual tension. I dare you to read it and find out how Ms. Briggs managed that!

At first you might think that we have an entirely new urban fantasy world here, but very shortly we find out that this world, too, is peopled by werewolves and vampires; the skinwalkers are definitely the minority. From what I read online, Ms. Briggs' editor asked her to write this book--it wasn't simply a matter of Patty wanting to jump on the werewolf/vampire bandwagon. Run on out and buy yourselves a copy--it's well worth the money. Even so, I still find myself wondering how much farther the wolf/vamp market will stretch. It'll stretch for Patty's book--it's that good. But I personally have no desire to write wolf/vamp just on the off chance that I might catch the tailboard of the bandwagon on its way out of dodge, and I have no editor out there asking me to contribute to the already crowded shelves of toothy and furry.

So what do you all think? What urban fantasy hasn't been done to undeath? Anyone?

Creeping Along

I managed to complete another section of Beyond the Pale--got the Moxie's crit on it Sunday evening and then just got it revised last night. It's going along pretty well, but I need to really buckle down and get a detailed outline for it. I have a much better idea now of who the bad guys are and what they want, but I need to refine things a bit and decide what the arc is for this book. The book's concept could easily turn into a series, and I already have an idea for a second book, but it's this first intro to the premise that could make or break things. The good news is that it seems like something it would be much easier for me to keep to a lower word count, like 100,000 or maybe 110,000. My Oantran Triad stuff is considerably longer than that.

The scary part for Pale is that it takes place on our own world, and I'm messing with folklore and legends. Yes, I'm doing my homework, as well as I can for someone who can't just pack up and fly to Ireland. I have been there before, which helps, and the folklore part isn't too bad--I'm not limiting it to only Irish folklore. The main problem is that I wasn't in Ireland for long, and I haven't been there recently. But I'm pulling every slightest bit of memory out of my hat, and I'm doing the best job I can with the details. I'll need that standard disclaimer--"Any mistakes are mine alone."

This would be easier if I had an Irish penpal to answer all my silly little questions--the ones I'm currently answering via culture guidebooks and whatever memory I can dredge up.

TGIF

Thank goodness it's Friday. We've had a crazy week here. Spent one evening in ER with my daughter who'd been bitten by a feral (but not rabid) cat, spent countless other hours working on the kids schoolwork and school-related planning and details, and then earlier this evening taking the girls to a movie for a mom-daughter night out. It's 11 o'clock and I've finally found an opportunity to write for the first time since the Sunday before last, so this entry will be brief. Last night was the full moon and my daughter didn't turn into a were-kitty, so I guess things are going along about as smoothly here as can be expected.

Can you believe that Idaho has no law to deal with feral cats? If you want a wild cat controlled, you basically have to control it yourself. If you bring it in to the humane society and pay a small fee, they'll deal with it from then on. Sheesh. First it bites my daughter, and then I'm going to have to trap it myself and pay someone to take it off my hands? Rant, rant. We've bought a humane trap, but I'm not sure we'll actually manage to trap anything except perhaps our own sweet kitty, who'll probably never want to go near anything with bars again for the rest of his life. I wouldn't put it past the feral cat to sit on top of the fence staring down at our poor trapped domestic kitty, laughing its nasty little orange head off.

If the trap doesn't work, I'm considering Neo-Chinese water torture, i.e., the garden hose.

It Works!

Ok, it's wierd to work on the computer with the moniter at this angle. I'm facing south, which I hear is good Feng Shui if you're looking for fame and fortune. I've also mostly switched myself onto a daytime schedule. Two problems with this: One is that at this time of day, the little bit of early spring sunlight we get here in Idaho is shining into my window from the west, which pales out my moniter screen and isn't very conducive to working with the computer in this position. Two, despite the fact that I've been in bed asleep before 1 a.m. for two nights in a row now, I still can't drag myself out of bed and/or get much done in the morning hours. That I'm still adjusting to the schedule change might be an excuse, but I'm tired of excuses. I just need to get my act together. I know what Yoda would say--"do, or do not. There is no try." Well, darn it, Yoda! Is there a half do? If I'm officially not trying, then I guess I'm at about the half do stage. Hmph. See what happens when I try to work earlier than late afternoon? You get semi-articulate Star Wars musings. Pass the caffeine, please!

As it happens, the last time I was able to write anything on either of my books was the Sunday before last, just before my Moxie meeting. And then I was late because I forgot the stupid time change, which I think should be abolished just on principle. Not one of Ben Franklin's better ideas, that. Lately all my time has been taken up with spring housecleaning and catching my kids up on homeschool work. I'm really looking forward to June, when school is done for the summer and most of their extracurricular activities go on hiatus until September.

The upshot of the geranium incident is that I did indeed get most of the downstairs of my house cleaned. The kids and the Huz even helped. It was clean enough that it actually echoed, even with the furniture still there. It took us several frantic, exhausting days of cleaning to get the house into what I considered acceptable shape--which means good enough that I wouldn't be embarrassed to have visitors. That probably tells you just how bad it must have been before the cleanup, but that's ok. It's clean now, and I'm here to vouch for just how much the frustration level goes down when one's environment is clean and organized rather than cluttered. My office reflects this, too. The addition of another tall bookshelf helped, as did the switching around of furniture so that I no longer have my back to the door. The room actually looks bigger this way, if a bit furniture-heavy on the west side. And there is now a red geranium on my desk.

If I don't get any work done now, it won't be the fault of a messy office.

The Magic Geranium

Have you ever read that old children's story where a woman's friend gives her a beautiful rose geranium and just setting it on the table makes her whole house look so shabby by comparison that she's compelled to clean and update everything? Well, now you don't have to read it. That's pretty much the whole story.

That also pretty much sums up what's happening to my office. I have a brand new color laser printer, still in the box. In order to even unpack the thing, I have to clean my entire office. I've been working on it for two days. I've also been working on getting to bed earlier and earlier until I'm almost back on an entirely daytime schedule. Hence, the earlier time frame of this blog post. I'm happy with the less cluttered office and the prospect of hooking up my new printer. I'm less happy with how tired the schedule transition is making me, but I'll adjust. I've been needing to get back into a more day-oriented schedule for some time now. It'll certainly make homeschooling easier if I can get it done in the morning rather than the afternoon. "If" being the operative word here. We're making great progress lately, so I'm hopeful.

I also made a tea drawer. One of my friends has this fantastic drawer in her kitchen that holds nothing but all sorts of different kinds of tea. It inspired me so much when I saw it that I just had to have a tea drawer, too. So I cleaned out one of my kitchen drawers to make into a tea drawer, and then when it was finished it was so neat and organized that I just had to clean and organize a few other drawers, too....oh, wait! It's the Magic Geranium all over again. But the effect was that after nearly two years in this house, I'm finally beginning to get some things arranged the way I want them. There's a long way to go, but I'm making progress.

The books, however, are not making such good progress. I need to fill another Pookatales order that needs to go into tomorrow's mail, and then maybe I can spend an hour or two writing before I have to hit the sack. Here's hoping I get more than a few paragraphs and can bring a decent number of words to the Moxie meeting this weekend.

In the meantime, my office is looking cleaner and cleaner, and under all that stuff on the desk I think I might just have room for a nice potted rose geranium.

Stand

I love writing. I adore it, and would never give it up even if I never get published. That said, I'm not immune to discouragement. In fact, I struggle with it every day.

I've been trying to be positive and upbeat regarding my long wait for publication. I'd like to be nothing but inspiring to other aspiring authors, but it's very, very hard. I've been writing one book or another of this particular series, the Oantran Triad, for seven years now. Hard to believe, but there it is. I showed the first incarnation of Aspects of Illusion to Jennifer Heddle clear back in 2000, revised it and signed with my agent in early 2003, and now here we are at 2006. I have the first two books of the trilogy finished and in what is deemed publishable shape, and I will shortly begin Chapter 7 of the third book. I've written and rewritten several times over, I've honed my craft, taken classes upon classes from some of the best writing teachers anywhere, I've chatted up various contacts at conferences on a yearly basis since 1998, taken classes and read books on how to manage live readings, public image, and wardrobe, and kept as much abreast of the current market news and trends as possible. I've worked my a** off for eight years gearing up for a career that has yet to materialize. The only feedback I've gotten is comments like, "I like the book, but I don't have a spot for it just now." If I should have an epitaph on a tombstone when I finally kick the bucket some day, will it read, "She missed it by that much"?

I'm tired of missing it by that much. I'm just plain tired of missing it. It's time, already. I've done my homework. My eyes are wide open. I know what I'm getting into. I've read so many blogs by phenominal writers who are discouraged by the fact that they've gotten the success they longed for and now they're having trouble remembering why they wanted it in the first place. I'm not talking just one author, here. There are several. And I feel for them. Really, I do. But here on the outside, I just keep meowing and scratching on the doors wanting to be let in. I'm sure that just like the cat, once I'm in, I'll probably want out again. In. Out. In. Out. In.

I know, I know, the grass is always greener, and all that jazz. But I've been out here for far longer than the abovementioned seven years. I wrote other books before Aspects, and I was writing books I intended for publication years before I went to that first writers' conference in 1998. I wrote my first novel at the age of sixteen, clear back during the 1980's. It's been a long, long wait at the bus stop. I want the darned bus to get here if for no other reason than I want a different view of the writer's life. By now, I feel as if I've counted and gotten on a first-name basis with every crack in every board of the shelter at the bus stop. I don't want my legacy to be that I spent a lifetime at the bus stop. I'd rather my legacy be that I went somewhere, that I got on the bus and it took me where I wanted to go. Would becoming a "successful" published author take away my joy in writing? I don't know. Call me perverse, but I'd like to find out. Not being published is not exactly netting me boatloads of joy, either. (Sheesh, all we need now are planes, trains and automobiles!)

I recently purchased a lovely goddess-type figurine. She's all in that white stone medium that many sculptors are using nowadays. She has no facial features, but she is completely draped in what looks like a long, flowing robe, and she evokes a strong, nurturing mother image. On the bottom is her name--Stand. Just that. So simple and yet so very difficult. Perhaps she'll remind me to keep on doing that, as I've been doing for so many years now. Perhaps I'll be able to just keep plugging away at the writing until something finally breaks loose and I get to take that big, longed-for step forward. In the meantime, I have to find a way to simply...

STAND.