Best Friday Ever!

I go home today. Despite the damn snow storm that's predicted for this evening. I was so excited about leaving today that my special treat to myself last night was to pack. I'm not kidding. Now I just have to contain my excitement until 1:30 when I leave to pick up Drew and then head over to the airport. T'ain't gonna be easy.

This week has been very difficult to get through. Early on, I was waiting on pins and needles to find out about the resolution of the matter I blogged about last Friday (see below). Then, I realized just how much more really needs to be done at the DDJ and that I was going to be leaving things dangling and working hard to accomplish them remotely next week. And finally, by yesterday, I was just plain sick of this whole mess and stopped being able to function at times, staring mindlessly at essay after essay on the rise and fall of Battlestar Gallactica.

The good news about this week, though, is that Mark's company got an extension on their project, allowing them the time they needed to optimize the last experiment for the project. And, in a late dose of the serendipity I called for a week ago, they discovered on Wednesday that the reaction they thought wasn't working that triggered them to ask for the extension (which, actually, getting the extension put the entire situation into a much more positive aspect for the company's future)...turns out it actually did work, they just had, basically, an ingredient past its expiration date or from a bad batch that tanked the results. There's still work to be done to make sure they slam dunk this project and leave no doubts to the future of everyone's job security. But things are looking very, very good that we won't have to worry about unemployment next month. Also, the crazy work hours may start to revert to normal, though Mark had to request Saturday off so he could spend it with me and Drew. Still has to work Sunday.

So it seems like our own version of March Madness will pay off quite well for us in the long run (did I mention the DDJ gave me a significant raise this week? and that all of a sudden there's tons of work to bring me back to full-time?). I don't ever want to go through this again, though.

The Word of the Day is Serendipity

If you've done any sort of study of the history of major scientific breakthrough of the past few centuries, you'll know that most of them have come from serendipity, pure luck, accident, etc. Mark and his insane project-to-save-the-company has hit a snag at the last step, the zero hour. It's the sort of setback that, given a couple of weeks, wouldn't be too big a deal. But they've got less than two days to figure out what the snag is, how to work around it, and how to optimize the step. And if they can't get things working in this very limited timeframe, then the big push will have failed after three weeks of very hard, remarkable work.

Please think happy thoughts. Please pray. Please concentrate on getting the universe to do its trippy science serendipity thing to make things work.

Rejected Novel Dedication #1

For _______, who vowed to do everything in her power to keep my books from being published.

Hope you enjoy this, my tenth novel!

Updated

By the time yesterday hit, it had sunk in as to just how universally stupid I was to volunteer to do this. Got reinforced today when my family's monumental sacrifice during a difficult time was (unintentionally) belittled so that someone else wouldn't feel bad or be held accountable. Got pounded into my brain when I was handed a MEGA EFFIN HUGE project in addition to all the other junk I have to accomplish in two weeks.

I *heart* the DDJ.

I'm taking a nice long vacation next month.

On the plus side, everyone is really doing what they can to be accommodating of my unique situation. I got to indulge myself at my coworker's wife's spa on Saturday while my coworker and his daughter watched Drew. I now have tastefully painted fingernails and shockingly painted toenails, which is how it should be. Also on the plus side, I found a swimsuit that manages to somewhat flatter my post-Drew figure (most of this is accomplished in hiding the nasty stretch marks on my tummy and hips). It's too bad the hotel pool is too cool for Drew's liking; I only bought the damn thing so I could take him swimming while we were here (you should have heard the screams when his little legs touched the water).

Thankfully technology has improved so that I could find the time to quickly enhance my blog with an RSS feed and a subscription service. That's the new-fangled stuff on the sidebar over there. If you want to spare yourself the time of checking my blog for updates (particularly right now when they certainly won't be daily), you can sign up to get an email every time I post. The internet is way cool.

The posts I will be doing will be quick and fun posts. I think I'm going to start a new series of posts called "Rejected Novel Dedications." Tune in tomorrow for the first (or just wait until your email pings you).

To Do: Purchase Straightjacket, Commit Self to Nut House

The name's Sane. In Sane.

What was supposed to be a quick three-day trip to the DDJ to take care of my usual monthly face-to-face meetings turned into something a bit more extended. Sixteen days more extended, to be precise. Before you go railing against my DDJ and telling me what I should tell my company, I will note that I actually suggested the extended stay. See above post title.

Seriously, I have been kicking around the concept of a two-week or longer visit since I realized over the past couple of weeks just how unorganized things have gotten with the day-to-day aspects of the project that I am no longer responsible for as I am remote and part-time. Blame can get passed around to a lot of places for this, including to me. I don't think I trained my replacement in the manner she required, nor did I follow up with her and our manager as extensively as was clearly necessary. Of course, that's all hindsight. (And also couched in careful language.)

Then with all of the chaos regarding Mark's job, I kept coming back to this idea, particularly when we thought he would be at home full-time right about now. So when I got to the DDJ this week and actually saw the extent of the difficulties, I knew I wouldn't be able to help get things back on track in just three days. I also knew that if things continued in the same fashion (and it was clear that my efforts would be needed to prevent that) that all of our jobs would get exponentially more painful in the near future, and I would more than likely have to come back for a longer trip then.

Yes. More Careful Language.

So, since Mark is working insane hours anyway at the moment and it's unclear what our situation will be like in April, I ran my crazy "How 'bout I don't come back 'til the end of the month" idea past Mark. He wasn't thrilled, but, seeing as how we had just weighed similar pros and cons when he was asked to go back to work nearly 24/7, he was willing to make the sacrifice as well.

The good news is that I still have all my connections up here from before our move and can call in favors for home-cooked meals and playdates for Drew on the weekends. The Drewbinator will be hanging out with the daycare provider he was with just prior to our move. We're staying in a suite-like hotel, which means I can write this comfortably on a bed while the Boy sleeps in the sitting area (the two areas are separated by 3/4ths of a wall). This is a vast improvement over hanging out in the bathroom as I've had to do in other hotels during previous trips with the Drew Monster.

The bad news is that, of course, Mark won't see his wife or his son for nearly three weeks, and me and Drew will be living out of suitcases and in cobbled together living situations for three weeks. Not exactly ideal. But things will be vastly improved at the DDJ, we'll have some extra money to work with (I'm full-time while I'm up here), Drew will be able to socialize quite a bit more than he gets to at home (as will I!), and Mark won't have to feel as guilty about working so much.

Here's to hoping April will be smoother for us than the past six months have been. I find myself sometimes wandering through the day, wondering if it's 2008 yet.

Promote Your Book on TV...For FREE!

For years, now, only the Big Shots in the publishing industry have been able to use TV time to advertise their books. They're the ones who do the talk-show circuit. They're the ones with the thirty-second ad with impressive background music and famous voice-over guys intoning some logline. You have to be a mega New York Times #1 Bestseller to get this sort of treatment.

Or, you did until this week.

Take a lesson from author and self-proclaimed deity and Asian Supremecist, Kenneth Eng, who dodges the important questions about his recent ass-hatery in order to promote his book.

That's right, you too can get that coveted air time by making raging bigoted comments in a somewhat obscure local paper. You just need to develop a key sense of narcissim and build a thick hide and adjust your auditory awareness (or at least refuse to be bothered by silly questions about your racist screeds in favor of babbling incoherently about your latest book).

I predict Kenneth Eng's next book is going to be a how-to for writers RE self-promotion. Or something else non-fiction about how evolution can be more logical, because that's totally the sort of thing I want to read about from an Out and Proud Bigot.

Update: Nevermind. This wasn't a good example of free publicity. The author in question was flogging a book that was released two years ago, when he has a book that just came out this month. Clearly, there's something else going on. Clearly.

A Whale of a Sale!

Holly wanted to change her luck, so she decided to put her writing clinic books (and a fiction book) on sale. This means you can get your mitts on the Create a Character Clinic, or the Create a Language Clinic, or the Create a Culture Clinic, or Hunting for the Corrigan's Blood, or any combination of the four, or ALL FOUR for cheaper than you could last week!

Seriously, gentle readers, the clinics are great. The Language and Culture clinics are excellent for not only helping you create a believable fictional world, but also for keeping your thoughts on that world organized for reference and future use. The Character clinic (which I haven't played around with as much) still struck me as an excellent way to develop character motivations and backstories, something which can be difficult if you have a character who enjoys playing mute.

As for the fiction novel, I haven't read it fully yet, but it starts out with our heroine in close quarters with a corpse! What's not to like?

Go. Buy. Enjoy.

Pardon the Shifting Soil. We're in Transition.

It's rather amazing how things can change in the space of fifteen minutes. As my work day wound down, Mark and Drew arrived home from changing the oil. Mark was on his cell phone, and Drew was covered in vomit. I extricated the boy while I overheard Mark saying things that sounded job offer-ish from his nearly-former job. Mark managed to sign off the call as soon as he could (wonder how many times he'll have to say, "I'll call you back shortly, my son just threw up"?) and start cleaning up the car while I cleaned up El Boyo. After the immediate mess was gone, Mark checked his email (the phone call was to mention that there was an email waiting for him), and Drew did his usual huddle close to Momma cuz I'm sick thing.

Turns out there's a project that got an extension and some funding wiggle room to meet an imminent deadline. If the science works out by the deadline, then the funding flows like wine, and Mark's got himself a job again. If it doesn't work out, then we'll have another few weeks of money from his job and even more glowing recommendations for the job hunt. The downside: the deadline is so imminent and the resources so tight that I pretty much won't see Mark for the next two to three weeks. Which means the Drew Monster is coming with me to Colorado next week. Still, a few temporary inconveniences are nothing if it helps Mark land a job in the long run.

As Mark gets on his cell phone to accept the offer, my work cell phone rings. Come to find out that someone's taking an unexpected vacay and spread the word (to one person, and that person was not me) that I would be picking up the slack for her next week. Um, yeah, OK, because they fly me back once a month so I can do other people's jobs. Makes total sense.

As I got off the phone and Mark went back to a more instense cleaning of the carseat, I looked at Drew, knowing this was his cue to barf again. But he didn't. Instead, he pushed himself off of my lap and picked up a toy to play with half-heartedly.

Sigh. Remember Saturday when I said that I wondered where we'd be by this weekend? Didn't expect to get so much answered by Monday.

Stressful Check-in

Who knew that in handling very well the insanity of the lay-off this week that Mark and I would have steam to vent? They should make echo points or neat sound-proofed rooms where you can go for a few minutes and just scream and cuss and bellow invective at the top of your lungs. I think we would have been willing to pay a few bucks for a few minutes of that today.

Mark's last day was actually yesterday. The company arranged to pay for the laid-off employees pay all of next week so they could start the job hunt without having to worry about money for a bit. This is good in that Mark will have a full week of me being here to adjust to the at-home-during-the-day thing. I'll be going back to Colorado for three days the week after.

And, no, I'm not quite able to go back to full-time at the DDJ. There's apparently no other tasks within my department that are suitable for a remote employee. We're begging to other departments now. And, of course, I'm looking for opportunities in the area and have applied to two. I'm a very good match for one and a good match for another. I'm hoping I'll hear back on the first soon.

I've got one story ready to mail out, and should have another one good to go tonight or tomorrow. Early this week, I'll kick them out the door and see what comes from it. By next weekend, I should have another story or two ready for submission, but I don't want to get too much of my stuff out there at once. I might wait to submit anything else until next month. We'll see.

I'm curious to see what the next week brings us. I think, in that sense, I'll be looking forward to the Saturday check-in posts every week.

A Happy Accident and an Unfortunate Reality

Last night, I printed out the story I had submitted a couple of times late last year. I thought I had printed the final version I sent out. I ripped into it, merrily cutting and revising per my thoughts on the feedback it received from one editor. As I got to the last line, something buzzed in my brain, asking me where a particular exchange was that I thought I had put into the story. I went through and looked for it, but couldn't find it. I did a mental shrug and assumed it had been in an earlier draft.

Then, today, I was printing out two other stories that I want to revise and kick out the door when I noticed a later draft of the story I worked on yesterday. Opened it up and, sure enough, there was the half-remembered dialog. I quickly read through the draft, making sure there was no other major changes that I needed. There weren't. Looking back at the draft I worked with yesterday and the one I found today, I like the earlier draft better. Much better. In fact, the stuff I added in to that later draft just clunked horribly and raised more questions than it answered.

After one last look through of the story with the revisions I made yesterday, I'll send that sucker out and feel much better about its quality.

While it was nice to have a mistake turn out to be a blessing in disguise, I wasn't so lucky earlier this week with regard to Carson's Learning, that novelette that made me more than a little nuts last year. It's been nine months since I looked at this thing, and boy-oh-boy did the distance do me good.

CL is absolute and utter crap. I'm embarrassed that I sent it out in the state it's in. Don't get me wrong, the nuts and bolts of the words aren't too bad, and the overall story is still there and good. But I've thrown eveything but the kitchen sink at my protagonist in less than 15,000 words, and I have next to no transitions to speak of. Between those two flaws, I have created a protagonist that seems disconnected from everything I shoved at him, heartless in the face of his backstory, and overall rather inconsistent. Also, I have jerked the reader around continuously by having them ask one story question in one scene, only to force them to ask another in the next scene.

Bad, bad, Kellie.

I went back to the basics with this story, getting to the heart of the conflict, looking at turning points, etc. I've got all of the elements of that sort mapped out in a clear way, but now that I'm crystal on who my protagonist is, what he wants, who my antagonist is, and how what that character wants drives the tension, I'm looking at a rough outline that in no way resembles the story as it stands now. In fact, I have an outline of turning points that I simply can't translate into an actual plot at the moment. I keep hoping that my subconcious or my muse will mull over the problem and spit out the answer any midnight now. But nothing yet. If anything, I'm getting more excited about the novel that I want to write with these characters later on in the timeline than I am about revising CL. Sigh.

That's the state of my writing today. Hopefully by the end of next week, I'll have revised all of the other short pieces and identified the markets where I can submit them. Then I'll be ready to get back into Shadow of Zehth, knowing that I've done all I can to bring in money with my writing at the moment.

When Life Hands You Lemons... Gonna Need Sugar. Lotsa Sugar.

Mark turned twenty-nine yesterday. His job gave him the most unusual birthday present: his two-week's notice. Yup, Mark's been laid off. (If you had told me five years ago that both my husband and myself would lose our jobs due to down-sizing before the age of thirty, I would have laughed myself silly.)

We're both holding up fairly well under this. The DDJ is investigating whether they can afford to take me back full-time. Mark's working the network he's developed in his few months at this company (with the full support of all the higher-ups; I think they might feel even worse than we do about this). We're both scrying all job opps in Phoenix and in Tucson (one bonus to living in Casa Grande is that the north side of Tucson is about as far as downtown Phoenix, once you count traffic). We're poised to start calling in favors and/or flipping burgers, whichever's going to make sure we don't default on our very first mortgage. Mark's got some unexpected, unbudgeted poker winnings that he'll try to increase. I've got a couple of short stories that need some revision and might be able to bring in a check and a pub credit eventually.

In short, we're stressed but committed and able to keep this roof over our heads and food in our mouths. My big fear is that, in the quest to keep the cash flowing, we'll both have to start sacrificing our dreams (poker and writing) or twisting them into things we never wanted them to be (desperately needed income sources instead of fun, fulfilling hobbies/vocations). So my goal in all of this mess (other than adjusting my work situation to get us more money ASAP) is to keep our dreams as pristine as we can.

Also heavy on my mind is making sure we don't sacrifice too much family time in the Search for More Money. What good is providing for Drew if we become strangers to him? So I'll be focusing on keeping quality time with the Boy a high priority as well.

I suggested a magic wand for a problem at the DDJ the other day. I could think of a few other applications at the moment.

Effective Viral Marketing

YouTube is a marketing gold mine. Case in point: this spoof music video from the movie Music & Lyrics. It's far more effective than any of the trailers I've seen for the movie, particularly in that it clearly indicates the movie is going to have lots of fun at the expense of 80s cheese pop, and that is the only thing that makes me interested in this movie beyond "Oh, look, another romantic comedy with familiar leading folks. Maybe I'll catch it on DVD or look for it on TV. Maybe."

One thing the video shows is how Wham! and Tears for Fears were basically the same deal, but with slightly different hair. And that the 80s cheese pop will be missed solely for nostalgia's sake, not for any great artistic value. Still, good times.

Deciding the Check-in

I went to Tucson's RWA chatper meeting today. It's a bit of a drive, but it's a pleasant drive through some of my old haunts, and it made for a nice day of me time. Had a lot of fun, really enjoyed the group's attitude toward writing and encouraging others. Liked the way they manage the money they took from me a lot better than the money RMFW took from me. But while these folks would be taking less money from me for annual membership, they will be taking more money from me any time I wanted to attend a workshop. Granted, the workshops are of better overall quality than RMFW's (not speaker-wise; the local pros in RMFW are fantabulous), but still it's more money.

All that being said, I was going to become a member of this writing group tonight when I read the details of membership and realized I had to become a member of the RWA national organization (which is a bit more money in annual dues, and I'm not entirely sure I want to spend that much more money on an organization in which my preferred genres are treated as secondary novel elements). So I've delayed my decision.

It's not going to be easy. I don't have a comparable group to what I was used to in Colorado (meaning good quality critique group that meets regularly not too far from where I live), and I'm not sure that Tucson RWA (or even one of the two Phoenix RWAs) could provide that for me. So that's a decent bit of money for something that's not my primary genre and that won't give me an opportunity for the steady feedback I had before. But I can't seem to find any other writer's orgs that are even remotely close to me, and part of the reason RMFW worked so well for me was that it was a weekly gathering of like-minded folks whose company I enjoyed while we gabbed about the business and art of writing.

I can't ignore the fact that this may be one of only a few chances I get to find some local writing buddies without running a personal ad or holding out for serendipity in the bookstores. And I can't ignore how connected I felt today, similar to how I felt at my first ever critique group meeting. How much is that worth to me?

Always the Main Character, Never the Secondary

In trying to get back into a regular writing schedule for SoZ, I've been digging my way into the heart of the conflict of the story and re-assessing the arcs and act structures of the book. And somewhere in all of this I'm trying to assimilate some sort of writing process so I don't have to entirely reinvent the wheel the next book around--I mean, if I start out knowing that the basic shape has to be round, surely I won't get mired in this again, right?

Last week I did the facepalm/headdesk thing as I realized that I've become a much more visual thinker and learner than I was in the past (or maybe I've always been so visual, I just never realized it and/or managed to play to that strength without a fuss), and that nothing in my writing process was as visual as I needed it to be. So I got the great idea of putting together a timeline that I could then printout and keep on very large posterboard on the wall by my writing desk. Excellent. Issue addressed.

Only I didn't have a timeline.

So back to the drawing board I went, trying to piece together a timeline. That's when I realized that four-act structures are great, but they're only for the protagonist's story/arc. And here I am with a protagonist for the overall Velorin series, a (different) protagonist for the initial trilogy, and yet another protagonist or two in the nebulous two to three books beyond the initial trilogy. Now, I have arcs and broad outlines for most if not all of these folks (and I'm including "Book 5 or 6: Think Final Fantasy X but with more science fiction and less fantasy, but they're trying to get back to the fantasy" as a broad outline and arc), but what about all of the other characters running around in these stories?

For my own sanity, I stuck with the POV characters from the first book (which are, incidentally, the POV characters from the next two books as well, excluding those who die in the course of the first book, of course). At first, I tried to weave what all the characters were doing in and around my protag's four-act structure. Then I did another facepalm and got to the heart of the "everyone's the star in their own show" saying. I was never going to believably write from a POV of a non-protag unless I got into their stories as if they were the protagonists. Said another way, I went back to each of my POV characters and looked at their stories as if I were going to write their stories for the book. I gave them all their own four-act structures. I'm going to give them all their own conflict boxes, too, I think.

Writing up all of those four-act structures made a few things clear to me: Ayren is definitely the antagonist, she has the most compelling view with which to tell this story as effectively (and efficiently) as possible, considering both the story itself and its salability. For example, I could write the first bit of the Velorin saga from Rayn's point of view, but then I would have to squish the first two books into one and shift my antagonist from Arzakel to Corla. Oh, and that act of squishing the first two books into one would make for either a very hefty first book (on the order of 150 to 200k) or a very superficial book on the order of 100k. Losing Arzakel as the antagonist in Book One also destroys the connection with the overall series antagonist, thus giving Loria's POV nothing to push against until I can re-introduce the series' antagonist much later in that two-into-one squish in Rayn's story. So Ayren is the protagonist, and I now can stop feeling guilty for giving her POV more time in the book than Rayn's. That fixes a lot of problems right there.

Also, looking at those four-acts for the antag and his "goons" made me solidify their backstory much better. In fact, the backstory is so much clearer, that I'm going to write snippets of it as standalone stories that will help me keep focus on character voices and conflicts. Because once the story is written, the image in my mind is solidified in a different way. It has concrete connections to something outside of my mind, and not just in a nebulous, I wrote my notes out or mapped them kind of way. But in an actual "I have translated my mental image into a complete story" kind of way. That really cements things for me, because once the story is complete, I can remember it as a movie, not just random images.

But I do have enough from all of these four-act structures to piece together a timeline and put that sucker up in lights next to my writing desk. I've got a few other things to put up there, too (such, I dunno, how 'bout the map, one of the most visual things I've had for this book since the beginning). Maybe by the end of the month I'll have put myself back on track for writing SoZ again. I really hope so.

Following in His Father's Footholds (While Wearing His Mother's Shoes)

Drew loves to climb. It's been a favorite sport of his for quite some time. We first noticed this hobby when he climbed up into the walker, hoisted himself onto the walker's tray and started reaching for the top of the swing next to the walker. Then there were the stairs at my mother's house. There's every bed and chair in this house. The coffee table (which he then likes to stand on in a King of the Mountain fashion--we're trying to break this habit). Any sort of ladder or jungle gym at the neighborhood playground. Every fence and railing at the zoo. And so on.

He definitely gets it from his father. I told Mark he better get back into climbing shape and soon--his son is going to need a partner when he decides he wants to start grappling up the big rocks, which will probably be the first time he sets eyes on any such thing. I am now reconsidering our vague notion of taking the Boy up to the Grand Canyon in the next few months.

Luckily, the Drewbinator doesn't seem to have inherited his mother's fear of falling. That's the reason I can't help Mark get back into climbing shape. I can scramble up any rock wall you put in front of me. I just can't get down without a therapist.

But there is a problem with the Drew Monster's choice of shoes for his climbing adventures. Andrew loves to put on my slip-on house shoes and go clomping around in them. Doesn't care for Daddy's shoes at all (can't really blame him, the things are seconds away from collapsing into a pile of unassociated shoe cells). In fact, Drew will often wander away from his toys in one area of the house, run to get my shoes, and either stuff himself into them and shuffle his way back, or drage them back to me so I can help him into them.

Hmmm. I suppose I better keep all of my strappy heels and such out of sight in our closet for a few years.

Metameme

Saw this running around a couple of blogs lately and thought I'd give it a go again.

1. Grab the nearest book.
2. Open it to page 161.
3. Find the fifth sentence.
4. Post the text of the sentence in your journal along with these instructions.
5. Don't search around and look for the coolest book you can find. Do what's actually next to you.

"It varies, but in the end it doesn't matter."
from an uncorrected proof of Elizabeth Lowell's The Color of Death (there's a price tag right next to the "NOT FOR SALE" notice; I picked it up as part of the "everything must go" sale at a closing Book Warehouse)

It's a Beautiful Check-in

Today has been absolutely gorgeous. Temps in the high 70s, low 80s. Bright blue sky with whispy clouds. Not a speck of dust or haze cluttering up the skyline, allowing a view all the way to the Catalinas in Tucson. Amazing. Days like these I wonder how I lived outside of this area for so long.

We took Drew up to the Phoenix Zoo today. He had a blast, though he was more impressed with all of the fences and railings he could climb than the animals. He did enjoy the giraffes and the tortoises and the monkeys. And, of course, nothing was more fun than running free on the walkways. He passed out in the car, and we drove around a bit to give him a long nap.

Thus we took the very scenic route home, a two-hour trek through the extreme southeast Phoenix valley (where the suburbs Queen Creek and Johnson Ranch are). The far east of the valley is quite beautiful, though I wouldn't want to live there with Mark having to drive into downtown. There's little to no infrastructure set up out there to handle all of the population boom. We drove for a good twenty minutes without seeing a gas station or a supermarket, just lots and lots of houses. (Of course, there could have been such things tucked away from the road, but that's not usually how the 'burbs are set up.)

We doglegged around the San Tan mountains and into Pinal County, through even more brand, spankin' new housing developments. If Mark worked in Mesa or Chandler or Gilbert, I could see us living there. The market is about the same in that area as it is in Casa Grande, and the views are great. The only downside is that you're awfully close to Florence and the State Pen, and I haven't heard a lot of reassuring things about that facility.

We cut through the reservation at that point (and I'd have to go to my map to remind myself which tribe owned that land) and had to further detour through the reservation and some open desert to avoid a bike race running a circuit using the two roads we needs to take to get back across I-10 and home. We were disappointed because those two roads both looked like neat drives through some craggy hills. As that loop is just five minutes or so from our house, we'll check is out next weekend.

As for the actual "what have I been doing this week" content of this check-in post, I managed to salvage an otherwise bummer of a week with the DDJ, but I didn't get around to writing after my awe-inspiring 5.4K last Sunday. I did, though, do some more mapping for SoZ, and should be able to do more tonight and/or tomorrow night.

The Wonders of the Dollar Store

It's amazing where you can find inspiration. I went into a local dollar store just to see about picking up some posterboard for mapping out SoZ in purty colors. I decided to wander around a bit and see if I could find anything else that might help me visualize my story better. I didn't find much for SoZ, but I did find something so intriguing that I'll have to set aside time to write a different story in the near future.

I was browsing the knick knack section when I saw it. In among some other colorfully painted Victorian hat stands (with attached hats, of course), I found one that was entirely painted in silver. I saw it, and my first thought, I kid you not, was, "Victorians...in...SPAAAAAAACE!!!!" And then I thought, "Damn, now I have to write that."

Why I Can't Head Hop

Sure, I could've posted about Valentine's day, but I figure ya'll are probably getting tired of the "my husband is the most awesome man eva" posts. Suffice to say, love is grand, Mark is amazing.

I finally figured out exactly why I struggle to read and enjoy books with an omniscient POV. I always imagine myself as the POV character. Woman, man, good guy, bad guy, whatever. So when I'm reading along, happily creating a movie in my head in which I'm the POV character, getting all the good lines, doing all the cool stunts, and then suddenly the POV switches to another character. And I have to stop, adjust the mental image, and start the movie back up from a different set of eyes (and, often, gender or moral outlook). Then in the next paragraph, the switch happens again. Repeat the stop and go. Finally I get so frustrated with all of this "hang on a sec" mental adjusting that I pull back to the surface and just read the words instead of living them vicariously. I read faster this way, sure, but it's not nearly as much fun as watching the book as a movie in my head.

And, in addition to preventing my preferred method of enjoying a book, omniscient POV often gets annoying with mirroring internal thoughts, particularly in a romance subplot. Hero thinks something about the sexy clothing the heroine is wearing and hopes his physical reaction to the ensemble isn't obvious. Next paragraph: heroine is flustered herself, wondering what hero thinks, and then spies the erection. I think the tension is better with the hero, trying to hide the obvious, wanting to do something about the state of affairs, but there's usually some Problem in the way (this is what's known as the primary plot), and generally feeling aroused and frustrated while trying not to get distracted from solving the Problem. That's good conflict, because everyone goes through that. Having the heroine's thoughts immediately respond to the hero's thoughts (rather than in dialog) seems like a cheat and really makes the snap and crackle of the scene fizzle out.

I like the suspense of not knowing what another character is thinking until it is revealed by that character's actions or words to the POV character. That's the way life goes, right? There are other contrivances in fiction that I don't have a problem with (consistent characters, complete plot resolution, etc), but head-hopping isn't one of them.

Happy Birthday, Blog!

My little corner of the vast and mighty internet turns four years old today. I feel like I should commemorate this occasion with a profound and deep post about how reading the four years of this blog can demonstrate how I have been shaped and changed. But it's been a long day, the DDJ has diminished my ability to think to a meager pilot light, and I'm hungry and want dinner pronto.

So. Here's to another four year. It's been great. Can't believe there's actual, digital evidence of how young and stoopid I was in chatting about myself and the world around me. I'm sure I'll have the same thought in another four years. Yadda, yadda, yadda.