I Need A Man!!!!

Any man will do.

In fact, several would be great!

You don't even have to look like the picture. I'm not picky.

I'm having trouble getting to know the hero of my story. I can't get in his head.

Oh...I probably could, and I'm trying, but right now I'm questioning whether I'm inventing or it's really him. (I know that sounds crazy since I'm actually the one creating him, but writers will know what I mean.)

I've tried using my husband as a role model - naturally my hero is partly my husband. But not all him.

I can picture him. I know what he looks like. I know how sexy he is. I know how he feels about my girl. I just can't get really deep in his head. He did enlighten me about a couple of things that totally surprised me but for the most part he's being really uncooperative, the sexy bastard.

I've tried character sheets. That's actually where I start questioning whether it's me or him.

And for my Savvy friends, yes I am aware that Savvy will soon be having a workshop on this very thing. I may very well take it, I don't know yet. But Savvy has workshops on everything and I can't afford them all. (I wish I could!) I have to be choosy.

I know that locale makes a difference. A man born in raised in the deep south thinks and reacts to things differently than a man born and raised in California. At least I would assume so. I think certain traits are inherent in all men though.

I need a man. One that is willing to let me pick his brain. And won't laugh at my random, off the wall questions.

Barring one of the species that possess the dangly bits coming forward and volunteering, do any of you other writers out there have any advice on how to get into a man's head?

public declaration

As I mentioned in a previous post, I have joined the Winter Writing Festival and we had to declare our goals. So I figured I would declare them here as well.

My goals:

• 500 words per day on any one of the 4 story ideas

OR

• 1 hour research

OR

• 1 hour plotting/character development/etc.

OR

• Writing at least one blog per week.

• I give myself permission to take Friday OR Saturday off since those are my husbands days off and I give myself permission to take Tuesdays off as those are deadline days for me with my day job and extremely busy (so two days off per week).

• I will not revise or edit until I have whatever I’m working on at least half done or I will get too caught up in details and get derailed.

 Each time we meet one of our goals we get to give ourselves a point, including one for signing up. So far, I've written two blog posts (three if you count this one). And if we go above and beyond we still get to give ourselves points for it. So four points so far. Uh huh, that's right, count 'em - that's four, on day three. I am doing good!

Ok, suuuuure, so technically it's not actually working on any of my stories, but it's a step. Don't be so picky. I'm writing!

Image obtained here

full circle

And here we are again.

Well, we bought our house and moved. And I could come up with a whole list of excuses as to why I haven't been here or why I haven't written, but what's the point. The main reason is fear. I've admitted that before I just haven't done anything to overcome it. I think I finally have figured out where it stems from at least. Several years ago I was in another writing group where one of the ladies in the group (a published author) totally trashed my writing. She basically told me that I had no talent and that my stories were too character driven and that character driven stories are no good, don't sell and are basically a cop out for untalented writers. That's about when I stopped writing.

Now, just because I've stopped writing doesn't mean that the people in my head have stopped bugging me. To be honest, it's driving me a little batty. So I need to remedy this. Every minute of the day I'm eavesdropping on conversations in my head. I'm seeing scenes that need to be put on paper. Seriously. Every minute. Try doing that for a day. Then try doing it for an infinite period of time. White jacket anyone?

Recently, my friends over at the Savvy Authors website sent me an invitation to join the yahoo group. It has many of the same people but now it's in my face in my inbox every morning. Staring back at me. Saying "what the hell, woman??? Why aren't you writing?? All these other people can do it, so can you!"

I signed up for a class on how to get inside a criminals mind so that I can better understand my villain. The class is fascinating. I've read their blogs. I've read other blogs on that some of these same people have written about writers block and how to overcome it. I've tried a couple of their methods. And I'm working on it.

I have a new mantra. I repeat to myself in the mornings. "I am a writer."

I joined the Winter Writing Festival over at Ruby Slippered-Sisterhood website. I have set goals for the next two months or so and I'm sticking to them. Heck, I could even win a prize if I stick to them. What better motivation?

I hate being so unsure of myself. In any aspect of my life. If you knew me, you would know that me being unsure about anything is so not me. I'm a fairly confident, opinionated person. And I'm not afraid to be the one to stand up and act silly. My philosophy is all about enjoying life. Except this part, apparently.

I'm working on it.

Have you ever had writer's block? What did you do to overcome it? Do you really think that it was a "block" or was it fear or procrastination? Or something else entirely? Share...maybe it will help....

Image obtained here

The almost reality that wasn't

For the past few weeks I have been forced to come to terms with the possibility of a long term future without Romeo. And I wasn't dealing very well with it. On the surface, nobody but me (and maybe my closest friends) had any idea of the inner turmoil that I was dealing with. I'm good at hiding things emotional things, usually. Unless it's a really sad movie, or commercial or something, then I struggle a bit.

Sure, Romeo and I have had our problems in the past. We've even split up a couple of times and been THISCLOSE to divorce. And yet, we still managed to pull through those times and our relationship is stronger and closer because of it. We truly have found our soul mates in each other, as cheesy as that may sound to some. We have been together since we were teenagers and the thought of even contemplating a future without him is horrible. The man is truly the love of my life.

Romeo has had some health issues for the past couple of months that they were trying to figure out what it was. A few weeks ago he had a CT scan done that came back a little abnormal. He was sent to a specialist who told him that it might be bladder cancer. So, it was schedule more tests, wait for appointments, wait for results and all the fun that all of those things entail.

The thoughts that go through your head while waiting for results like that are scary. The futures that you envision for yourselves during that time and the uncertainty of a future that you thought was certain is mentally and emotionally draining.

All of this while in the midst of buying a house. As in, already in contract, just waiting on everything to get done to close.

Finally got the results of the testing back, and good news! No cancer! Yay! They said that he may have had some sort of stones that were already passed or something of that nature.

Closing on the house is supposed to happen next Monday, but who knows. It's a bank owned property and banks seem to be on their own time schedule. Then we'll be moving.

So needless to say, I haven't been writing much lately. In the new house I will have my own office though, complete with a door that I can close when I need to! So hopefully that is something that will be remedied relatively soon! :)

Off to work.

Best Laid Plans (and all that)...

So, I totally had a plan. I was going to start writing more and start blogging more. I was going to get this done, damn it! Yeah well, I shoulda kept my mouth shut. LOL

Let's see...first my son got hit by a snow plow. Yeah, you read that right. A freaking SNOW PLOW hit my child...and then drove off. Luckily, he wasn't too seriously hurt...at least compared to what could have happened but he still went to the ER by ambulance and was sent home on crutches where he limped around for about 2 weeks. It took a big gouge out of his shin along with various smaller gouges here and there, scratched up his back and side pretty good and turned both of his legs yellow with bruising for a while.

Now, my son is not small. He is a 6'2 sixteen year old with the build of a linebacker. He was not walking too close to the road and he was with two other people, both girls, one of which was also hit. You cannot tell me that the driver didn't see them, or at the very least, feel that hit. We made a report to the police, who checked to make sure it wasn't a city snow plow since they can track those by GPS (apparently all the city snow plows were already back in the garage at the time of the incident) and....that's about it. That's all they will do since nobody got the license plate number. I kind of think it's crap, personally. He may be a big kid, but it's still a hit and run of a kid.

Oh, and the conversation with the "Accident Investigation Division" was quite pleasant.

• Officer: "If it was a city snow plow wouldn't you agree that they probably didn't see him?"

• Me: "Well, I would agree that it's possible they didn't see him."

• Officer: "Well, then it's not really a hit/skip if they didn't know they hit him then, is it?"

• Me: (incredulous) "Ok, so this guy can just say they didn't see him and he gets away with it? He has no responsibility? WTF?"

• Officer: "No, he would still be responsible but if he didn't see him then it's technically not a hit/skip so it wouldn't be something we would investigate."

Wow. That's all I can say about that.

On top of that, somehow we ended up dog-sitting my mother-in-law's (yes I know it's mothers-in-law but I hate that, it just never looks right to me) sick dog so that we could see if he would get better before she just took him and put him down because she's not capable of caring for him. That was fun. Oh yeah. When we first got him he couldn't even walk. We had to hook him up in some harness at his back end and support him so he could walk. LOTS of work and attention. Within four days he was up walking on his own and snarling at our dogs (SO not happy about that) and getting territorial. By day five one of his hind legs was swollen. Took him to our vet and found out that he's actually got bone cancer (she had been told hip dysplasia by a different vet). *sad face* He's too old for any of the treatments to really be a viable option. So, we sent him home so that she could spend some time with him and decide what she wants to do.

My son does virtual schooling and is a sophomore so it's time for OGT testing (Ohio Graduation Testing, I think is what it stands for) - mandatory state testing for all sophomores. Which means transporting him to an off site location each night to do the testing. Not a big deal, but time consuming.

We are also house hunting, so any free time (haha) lately has been devoted to following a realtor around looking at houses and all that fun stuff.

Oh yeah, and working. Can't forget that.


In the midst of all of that I didn't get much of a chance to write. Can you imagine? I did, however, manage to do a bit of research, work out a problem in my plot that I was having and do a (little) bit of character development as well as some free write stuff.

And now, I'm here as promised.

So, that has been my crazy, chaotic life for the past few weeks. Unfortunately, it happened right when I had multiple workshops going on over at Savvy that, as a result, I didn't have time to participate in, which really stinks.

Out of hiding...

Wow, it's been a long time since I wrote anything here! Yes, I sort of gave up on the writing for a while. Oh, it was never far from my mind...but I just couldn't seem to make myself sit and write anything. Fear? Writer's block? Maybe a little bit of both.

Somehow, I found my way to a website a few months back of an author named Holly Lisle. To be perfectly honest, I've never read any of her work but her website has been helpful. I also signed up for her newsletter and recently found out that she is hosting this workshop about editing. In following the link to the site that is hosting the workshop I found a plethora of other workshops, and many of them were being offered free to members of the site! Just the thing I needed to give me a kick in the ass to get writing, I decided. So I joined the website and signed up for a bunch of the workshops.

Where is this magical place, you might be wondering? Well, it's at SavvyAuthors.com. The cost of joining the website is $30 for a year, which considering the number of workshops I'm getting for free is well worth it. They have other workshops that they host as well that there is a small charge for, but they typically only range from $5-$15 for their members. It gives you the chance to mingle with other writers, both published and just starting out, they have worksheets for character building and a database of editors/publishers. Most of the workshops are hosted by published authors as well.

The workshops that I have signed up for? Well, they are hosting what they are calling the 2010 Writers' Boot Camp, which includes several workshops and some free book and software raffles. So far I have signed up for the following:

• Assaulting A Writer's Thinking
• How, When and Why to Change Point of View Mid-Scene
• Foreshadowing
• Before Copy-Editing
• How To Promote When You Don't Know How
• Editing & Book Design
• Crash Revisions
• Promoting With Social Media
• Ten Ugly Truths About Publishing

Now, granted I'm not so far into my writing that I need some of these workshops but I figured they are free so I might as well take advantage of them!

One of the first things discussed in the current workshop was setting goals. Another thing touched on was the importance of networking and using blogging as a tool to get our presence out on the internet. So one of my goals was to start blogging more. I'm going to try to stick with that. My problem is that I just usually don't have much to say that I think anybody cares about! I'll have to work on that.

That, and oh yeah...my habit of procrastinating. Procrastinating won't get my book written!

Neither will thinking about what I want to write as I go to bed at night, drive in the car or take a shower.

happenstance

PROMPT:

happenstance: noun; an event that might have been arranged although it was
really accidental [syn: coincidence] (Dictionary. com)

use this word as the central focus or theme of your piece

Bonus Points: include music somewhere in your piece - as always this does
not have to be prominent or important in your story, just in there somewhere

Walking into the bar, Cate was immediately taken by the atmosphere. Beth had called it a club, but really it was just a bar. It didn't have the thumping music or the crazy, twenty-something crowd that Cate associated with a club. It had soft lighting, wasn't as loud as she had expected and had a blues band playing on the stage. From the outside it had the look of a gothic club and she was unexpectedly delighted as she entered.

"Well, what do you think, Cate?" Beth asked her.

"I love it!"

"I thought you might." Beth grinned at her. Turning around, she led the way to a table near the back of the room, flagging down the waitress as she passed her.

As they sat down, the waitress joined them, "What can I get for you ladies tonight?"

Glancing up at the waitress, Cate found herself staring. She was uncommonly pretty but not in an obvious way. She had short red hair and was wearing lipstick that almost matched the red of her hair. Her name-tag gave her name as Ella. Tilting her head to one side, Cate studied her trying to figure out what it was about her. She certainly didn't wear clothes to attract attention, her hair style was very basic and simple and she wore little makeup. It was almost as though she was purposely downplaying her beauty. Despite all that, she just had this....glow.

"Cate? Catelyn!"

Cate snapped back to reality and blushed, realizing that she had totally been examining this girl as she stood there waiting for her drink order. "I'm so sorry!" Cate exclaimed, "it must be the jet lag." Ok, so one little white lie. The waitress would never know that she was only one time zone away.

Ella smiled at her, still waiting.

"I'll have a, umm....," leaning back so that she could see around Ella, Cate looked to see if the bartender looked competent and sucked in a breath. The man was gorgeous! He looked up right at that moment and caught Cate looking at him, grinned and winked at her. Blushing again, she sat back into her seat normally and told the waitress she'd have a french martini.

As Ella walked away, Beth looked at her and laughed. "I did that the first time I came here too. Aren't they gorgeous? Wait until you see the owner."

Cate nodded at her friend and looked around. "I thought you were bringing me to a club. This isn't a club, at least not by my definition of it."

"Oh well, some nights it is. The owner is very....strange. Some nights this place runs as a goth club and then other nights, completely at random, he will have in a blues band, or some other local talent. He never even gives any advance notice of it, it's just whenever he's in the mood for something different I guess. I wasn't sure what we'd find."

"It doesn't sound like a very lucrative way to run a business," Cate replied. Even though as she looked around the club, it was obviously a thriving night spot. It was still very crowded. The band launched into a Jimi Hendrix song "Red House" and she started tapping her fingers on the table. She loved this song. "I love the atmosphere," she told Beth.

"Well, he doesn't seem to have any problems keeping his customers coming around. And speak of the devil..."

Cate glanced back at Beth to see what she meant, just as her french martini arrived in front of her accompanied by a smooth as silk voice saying "Good evening ladies. I hope you are enjoying my establishment."

Looking up to see who the voice belonged to, this time instead of sucking in a breath she seemed unable to draw one entirely. She found herself staring into the most beautiful blue eyes she'd ever seen, attached to one of the most incredibly good looking men she'd ever seen.

Across the table, Beth grinned as she looked back and forth between the two of them staring at each other.

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