Workings of a Writing Mind

Freewriting today to get the pump primed, our illustration courtesy of Gunther from my Sims 3 game. Pretty accurate for the writing life, I'd say. Though this is the day of the week when I generally meet with writer friends, life happens, and thus it’s me and me and me.

Which is fine. That’s how writing goes, isn’t it? One writer (two or more if we’re talking a collaboration, but we aren’t at the moment, so move along, nothing to see here) with butt in chair and fingers on keyboard. While it’s important to keep in contact with those of our own kind (especially for those of us who are extroverts, but that’s for another post), writers are not people who talk about writing, without actually doing the work. Writers are people who write. We tell stories. We interpret what’s unfolding in our heads and put it in a form that allows others to enter these worlds of our own creation and get to know the characters who inhabit them.

This morning, I told the woman behind the counter at my local Panera that I have crossed the bar into fall and my usual beverage is now hot tea rather than iced. I wore my fleece vest, a knit hat and matching mitts while on my once-again-customary morning walk with a neighbor. My brain gave me the signal that it’s time for fresh tunes on my mp3 player. Since my brain gave me that signal immediately prior to the device asking me to reformat it, I’m going to consider that confirmation that I’m on the right track.

When I was but a wee princess, my mother used to tell me that the more I did, the more I would want to do, and that holds true with writing as well. I’ve called these random babblings ‘morning pages’ if I want to be writerly, ‘priming the pump’ or ‘freewriting’ most of the time, and if I’m angry/upset/stabby/etc, ‘bloodletting.’ It’s that whole bodies in motion tend to stay in motion sort of thing. We like motion.

Which is why, today, you get this. I am giving myself a challenge. One page of freewriting every weekday morning this week, posted here. That’s the goal. If I tell the interwebs I’m doing it, then I have to follow through. Pictures may be present, but do not count toward page count. Happy Dance Friday will likely count toward fulfilling this challenge, unless faithful readers like you want a double post with extra rambling.

What goes through your head before you get down to business for the day?

Happy Dance Friday #108b Dueling "Mercy" 2/8

When I decided to compare this week's performances to the originals, my first question was which to look at first. Not as easy a task as it seems. For most of us, the original performances are what we know, unless, like the week's guest judges, the ballet boys, they had not seen the original and then the new performance is all they know. There's also the fact that Mia choreographs for the original dancers, and stepping into someone else's role has an added challenge.

Still, I want to look at the new performance in its own merits. What do these dancers bring to the performance? Are their characters unique while still maintaining the flavor of the piece? making something the same but different is a tough challenge, and one writers of genre fiction face on a regular basis. Reach happily ever after, solve the crime, save the world, come of age, etc, but in a different way with each new story. It's all in the details, and that's what makes comparing the same dances with different dancers this much fun for me.

That said, it's time to get down to business. For ease of writing, each dance story will have two characters, the Woman and the Man. tWitch and Katee's original performance has a definite dynamic to it. I get the craziness of the relationship, the Man's easy swagger, his cooler demeanor contrasted with the woman's perpetual and prickly determination. I imagine the man has been through this scenario before. He's doing what a man does in his own home, and then she's baaaaack. He opens the door, there's the kiss and it's on.



All wrapped up with that achingly vulnerable look on the woman's face when the door closes with her on the outside yet again.

Love tWitch, love Katee, so I was curious who they'd put in this version. Cyrus and Eliana definitely put their own spin on things. Cyrus' interpretation of the man seems younger (understandably) and Eliana's woman strikes me as less deranged and more aggressive. What stands out to me most for the flavor of the new performance is at about fifty seconds in, where the man puts the woman outside the door. The man flat out grins. (Yes, tWitch's character grinned as well, but this has a different feel.) I like the way that fits in with Cyrus' looser movements, giving, to me, a more humorous take on this scenario. I don't think the man minds the woman's actions as much as the previous incarnation, and when the woman finds herself shut out at the end, I would suspect she'd be back before too long. Like Nigel, I would not have been surprised if the woman had been the one to shut the man out this time.



I don't know if anything like this exists for the other performances, but I found an interesting split screen of both versions here:



Okay, dance fans, which version did you prefer? Apples and oranges? Mix and match? Are there any other dancers you'd want to see perform this routine? If you were/are a dancer, would you ever want a crack at such choreography?

Writing for Fun

Writing for fun has been on my mind a lot lately, because real life has taken one of those turns that can best be described as "aaaahhhhhhh." The robot uprising has begun within my own personal electronics as multiple devices decided to go belly up or seriously wonky at the same time (Linda, Kara, E and la, you have saved my patoot as well as my sanity) and at least one is one replacement part away from having more than I'd like in common with Frankenstein's monster.

Which goes a long way to explain my recent absence here. A beloved uncle passed, our family is looking at a long anticipated interstate move that may happen in quick fashion, a heat wave and summer cold do not cancel each other out, and I am using the Not at Nationals tag here, as, despite my best intentions, blogging about not being at Nationals did not happen during the course of the actual gathering. Nope, did not go this year, but I will make it at least once. :shakes fist at monitor:

So, writing for fun relates to this how? I will admit that it's easy to get distracted and off on bunny trails. I will admit that those of us pursuing a career in commercial fiction do need to pay some attention to market trends, the state of the industry, the state of the genre, and nobody but me is going to write my book, same as nobody but you is going to write yours. A page a day is a book in a year and butt in chair, fingers in keyboard, yes, all of that is true. Writing is a business and those of us who are in it have to do the work.

At the same time, where is the love? I've thought back recently to those afternoons of cobbling together a desk out of tv trays and letting the story spill out of me because I knew it, I lived it, and the characters had to get out of my head and onto the page. (Though in full disclosure, do they really leave?) Right now, I'm overhauling a ms I've already written...and rewritten. It's natural in such endeavors to get bogged down with the "do I have to go over this again?" refrain. Who cares? I know how it turns out, so good enough and on to the next? Well, no. If it were, I wouldn't be writing.

While I'm doing the grownup writer thing by putting butt in chair and fingers on keyboard/pen in hand/chalk on cave wall (refer to robot uprising mentioned above)there's still a need for fun to keep the spark alive. Sort of a dating your spouse thing. In real life, DH knows that ordering takeout and suggesting trips to Barnes and Noble keep him in my good graces, especially when in full on writer crank. It's the same in writing. I've found a need to play in the mist, let characters have their way with me, perhaps toss around with a few like-minded souls. Not sure what track this will take, but knowing the need is halfway to fulfilling it, right?

Have you ever written only for fun? What's your favorite creative playground?

Sunday Rambles: Of Missing Comments, Nick Hornby and Matters of Voice

First, comment issue should be fixed now. Though I have read about a bug with Blogger, I'm going to take responsibility with this one; I'd had my text and background colors too similar to see a difference. In short, the link was there, but invisible, which is not terribly helpful. Many thanks to those who clued me into the glitch.


To prove that I do actually read books, this weekend, I finished my a relisten (audiobook) of Juliet, Naked, by Nick Hornby. I first discovered Nick Hornby through the movie, About a Boy, which led me to track down the book, which led me to A Long Way Down and How To Be Good and his first YA novel, Slam. I have yet to read High Fidelity or his memoir, Fever Pitch, and while I'm aware of the US movie versions of both, I'm going to pass and hold out for the books.

I have my reasons. While there are Americans in some Hornby novels - JJ in A Long Way Down, Tucker from Juliet, Naked - Nick Hornby's voice is such an integral part of these stories that to see things transposed to a different continent and culture would be too much of a paradigm shift. Possibly along the lines of Gilbert Gottfried reading Fifty Shades of Grey. Which ties in with reason two, that, although I do love movies and TV, one of the very few things I like about the summer season is that the dearth of new programming does allow for more reading time.

Nick Hornby is not a romance novelist, though there are some memorable romances in some of his books, and Juliet, Naked, fits that bill. Not a romance, but a love story, and one which covers different sorts of love. Romantic love, successful and not, parental love, love of work (yes, really) and what makes me want to hug the author the hardest, love of fandom. No surprise, as his first work, Fever Pitch, is about his devotion to the Arsenal football team, and while the object of the fannish affection can change, fandom is fandom, and Nick Hornby gets it.

In Juliet, Naked, Duncan's devotion to reclusive former singer-songwriter Tucker Crow eclipses and eventually fractures his devotion to his longtime girlfriend, Annie, whose exception to this leads to her finding her own voice and the man behind the myth. Anyone who's been involved in internet fandom will understand the trolls, the bulletin boards, the fanon and that moment when what 'everybody knows' isn't what really is.

Given that one of my musical interests right now is tracking down acoustic versions of favorite songs, I'd love to be able to play the fictional albums, Juliet (in the story, an iconic 80's rock album) and Juliet, Naked, the acoustic demo version that fractures the fandom and the lives of our protagonists and the artist himself, and judge for myself which version I liked better. My best guess: apples and oranges. Both have their own merits, and when one, as Annie does in the book, goes straight to the source, the truth is somewhere in between. As a writer, I get that.

So. Rambling here, but on a Sunday afternoon, I'm allowed. What about you, faithful readers? Have you read Nick Hornby? What writers' voices ring true to you? Leave a comment, because now you can.

Happy Dance Friday #99 - SYTYCD Season Nine Flexes Creative Muscles

Does my Second Life avatar think she can dance? Still too soon to tell, but So You Think You Can Dance is back for season nine, and it's got me thinking.

While watching the New York and Texas auditions last night, it hit me why I love this show with such a fierce passion. Clue is right there. Fierce passion. Australian dancer Daniel Baker fell in love with the US as a child, and became a ballet dancer so he could get a US visa (and bonus points to him for understanding that one book can change a whole life.) Another dancer confessed to training "like a lab rat" to perfect his ability to flip over objects. Yet another didn't need to tell us that his dance interpreted the poignant loss of his dear friend in the 9-11 attacks; his body told us the story in the pure language of emotion. I greatly appreciate that this season, at least so far, has been focusing on the truly excellent dancers, and their passion shines bright.



We've all seen the other kind, those who, and I'm not naming names, state that their greatest ambition is "to be a celebrity," are twentysomethings who are convinced they know more than seasoned dancers with decades of combined experience, champions in their field, and in the case of Li'l C, can honestly say that they are the co-originator of a wildly popular dance style. Ugly attitudes do not impress anybody. Phenomenal artistry does.



I love SYTYCD because it shows artists in love with their art, whether classically trained or self taught, who push themselves to the limits of their knowledge base, and in doing so, come away with a whole slew of new tools for their artistic toolbox.

My very favorites, though, are the ones who know exactly who they are and bring us into their world, like flapper-obsessed Amelia Lowe. Maybe it's the strong connection to a bygone era, maybe it's that authorial voice is big on my mind lately or that my current heroine is a dancer, but all of the really good auditions from last night sent me away from the tv with a spring in my step and that burning passion to get some sleep and then pound some keys. We writers may not get a stage and an auditorium filled with our cheering peers (but sitting across a hotel dining room table from an editor or agent is pretty sweet, too,) and I think I'm safe in saying the majority of us are not staggeringly fit twentysomethings, but other than that, it's the same. We channel our burning passion through words, while they channel through movement, and the emotions we have the privilege of being able to touch are the same.



How are you going to flex your creative muscles today?

Different Drum

I'm blogging today at Heroes and Heartbreakers, on gritty western romances that might appeal to fans of Hell on Wheels, I've already blogged about the show itself here.

The western US isn't my favorite settting, nor is the nineteenth century as a whole. The Regency era dominates the market, but that's not my favorite, either. Not saying I haven't read books in those settings that haven't resonated with me, because I read for the story first, but plop me down anywhere between the end of the Wars of the Roses and the end of the American Revolution, and I'm a happy camper. Paranormals are huge, but not my cuppa as a whole, though this past summer, I delved deep into Anne Rice's Interview With a Vampire...but the sequel, The Vampire Lestat, starring the author's own favorite character, didn't hold my interest as much, and I have no plans to read the rest of the books in the series. I wouldn't call myself an overall zombie fan, but I've already blogged about my deep and abiding love for The Walking Dead in both televised and graphic novel formats.

Former Monkee, former politician and perpetually independent entertainer Michael Nesmith's signature song, above, seems to fit the bill for today's entry. I can't count how many times I've been the only X in a group of Ys, and I'm okay with that. I like being unique. Right here, my brain flashes back to when a friend I will call L and I were on one of our customary mall excursions. It happened to be October, and I noticed the Halloween store. I can still hear L's voice as I veered in that direction. "Your'e going in there to look for regular clothes, aren't you?" She was right. Hey, I like black. For years, I kept polish on my toes every day but never my fingers, but after figuring out why I had a hard time keeping polish on my fingers, I changed the way I did things and now I get to polish all the nails. It feels more "me."

This carries over to writing as well. Recently, I've found the best way to climb out of a slump is to remember what it it I love about writing. The feeling of picking out the right notebook - mine have to be pretty- and the right pen and leaving myself open to the characters that wanted to come out and play. When I pick up that notebook, my head is in that story and nowhere else. It's a good place, and a place where I need to spend more time. Ditto with my home office, which currently serves more of a storage function. Not stressing; process can be an organic thing, shaping around circumstance and the demands of daily life, but as long as the stories get told, as long as the movement continues from 'once upon a time' to 'happily ever after' I call it good.

How about you? What writing habit may seem odd to others but works for you?

Happy New Year Rambling, Part The Third

In the spirit of honesty and authenticity, I should probably mention that as I start this entry, I have no earthly idea what I'd originally meant to say here. Which means the new year is truly here, and back to work. Easily done, though I think I short circuited part of my brain by transcribing and tweaking seventeen pages on Tuesday.

Today's "voice" graphic is here because A) I vaguely remember that voice had something to do with the planned post that got nibbled to death by ducks, B) my brain fritzes out as soon as I open Photoshop Elements, and C) I can turn this around. Probably need more caffiene first, though.

Right now, I'm wrangling with convincing my laptop that it is signed into Rhapsody, and my brain that I do know how to do this writing thing. Or in today's case, re-writing. The scene I'm working on today wasn't there in the last draft of this ms, but it works better than what was there in the first draft, is truer to the characters, and heightens the impact of what is to happen next, so this is a good thing. I'll grumble and I'll wrangle and dear writer friends, you will probably hear me whine, but it's all part of the process. Life and love can both be problematic, so I can't see writing about either topic being without a few bumps in the road.

So. This voice thing. Ask a dozen writers what voice is and you might get a dozen different answers (or a dozen "I dunno" answers, possibly at the same time) but we know it when we encounter it. Give Meat Loaf, Weird Al, Luciano Pavarotti, Paul McCartney, Toby Keith and James Blunt the same song to sing, stick them all on the same playlist and hit shuffle. Doesn't matter if it's "Unchained Melody" or "I'm a Little Teapot" or anything else one might like. There's not the slightest chance that the playlist will sound like the same guy singing the same song. The words might be the same, the arrangements and melodies the same, but it's the unique voice of each singer that's going to make the difference. Not going to mistake Loretta Lynn for Lady Gaga, that's for sure, and if you bought an Osmonds CD and found HIM inside, (or vice versa) even if the song list were exactly the same, it would not be the same listening experience.

It's the same with writers. Bertrice Small and Lynn Kurland both write historical romance novels, for example. Ms. Small is known for her love scenes, while Ms. Kurland is known for leaving the bedroom door modestly closed. Personally, I'm somewhere in the middle, but I have read wonderful books by both, and by a wide variety of others. I've always known I was hardwired for historical romance; even as a wee little princess, I was drawn to fairy tales and anything that took place in a century prior to the 20th. Even then, I was predisposed to stories with a hero, a heroine, and a happily ever after, so it's no surprise where I landed as a writer. The harder the road the characters had to get to their HEA, the better, and I still hold to that today. A college friend, after reading my first ms (thankfully retired to the back of the closet, for the good of all mankind) dubbed it "How To Totally Screw Up A Character's Life in Five Hundred Pages or More." She wasn't that far off.

My favorite quote from the Dr. Who episode, "Blink," gets trotted out a lot when I talk about voice, but "sad is happy for deep people" resonates with me. If somebody's heart breaks, if the floor drops out from below one of my main characters, if they lose everything they've ever counted upon to get through their world, then there's a great story in how they get back from that. The lower the valley, the higher the mountaintop. I like the high drama, the heights and the depths, and as a favorite writing teacher used to tell us, if the stars are real, then the mud had better be as real. Bad things happen in life, even to good people, but it's possible to get through that and not only survive but triumph. That's going to come through in any story I tell, and I'm fine with that. Bring it on, New Year. I'm ready.

Happy Dance Friday #75 - Happy for Deep People

Kathy Nightingale: What did you come here for anyway?
Sally Sparrow: I love old things. They make me feel sad.
Kathy Nightingale: What's good about sad?
Sally Sparrow: It's happy for deep people.

"Blink" - Dr. Who

This quote pretty much sums it up for me. Even though my DH had some fancy talking to do to keep me from doing the television physical harm during the "Blink" episode of Doctor Who (I am sure his ears still ring with my outraged shrieks of "that is not romantic!")I connected strongly with Sally's character. Old things, old places, abandoned yet full of the ghosts of what ifs and might have beens, always give me a delicious shiver - what seeds of stories could be found in what looks to others like a lost cause? For a historical romance writer, ruins are a treasure trove.

I must have watched the video for Adele's "Someone Like You" at least a dozen times already, and there has to be a story in there somewhere. The black and white film takes us into both the bleakness of a lost love, the scenery is gorgeously old world and Adele herself is utterly stunning. Pay special attention to her expression in the sequence that begins at 4:09, and the slow, heartbreaking reveal in the background.



I have mad, crazy love for Christina Perri's "Jar of Hearts," which has been beautifully interpreted on So You Think You Can Dance, but it was Josh Krajcik's performance on X Factor that made me stop in my tracks. Give this song to a male, and the impact, at least for me, heightens. Shivers, absolute shivers.



Pop star accompanied by a symphony orchestra? I am there. Since "Evaporated" by Ben Folds perfectly encapsulates where the hero of my postapocalyptic medieval ms enters the story, imagine my delight at finding a version where Mr. Folds' backup musicians happen to be the West Australian Symphony Orchestra:



What about you? Do you find beauty in the dark places to get your idea hamster running?

Writing Advice from Louis de Pointe du Lac

"There's a simple answer to that. I don't believe I want to give simple answers," said the vampire. "I think I want to tell the real story." -- Anne Rice, Interview With The Vampire

This is not my book vs movie post for Interview With The Vampire (that's later) but the above quote is going in my inspiration notebook. I knew I would love this book right there, because those words, spoken by Louis, the book's narrator, neatly sum up my attitude toward writing. Louis begins as he means to go on, telling the real story of his life, death and undeath as opposed to the one the boy who interviews him might wish to hear.

We follow Louis from his human origins, along the complicated path he walks for nearly two centuries, until he informs the boy in matter of fact fashion, "And that's the end of it. There's nothing else. " The boy doesn't like this, but Louis returns " I tell you, and I have told you, that it could not have ended any other way."

I think Louis was on to something there. While Louis is fictional, Anne Rice still managed to make him real, and I say that qualifies him to give advice. What makes Louis real for me is the amount of detail we get about his life, seeing through his eyes, not only what is around him, but what Louis as an individual notices. Another character going through exactly the same events would notice different things, and we would have a different story.

Author Barbara Samuel O'Neal has this to say on the importance of detail, or as she phrases it, "layering in lusciousness." http://awriterafoot.typepad.com/a_writer_afoot/2007/10/layering-in-lus.html

Louis would have approved. While his story is one I want to let sit in my mind and ruminate for a while, I can tell Louis himself is going to stick around in my head (and my inspiration notebook) for quite some time. Even though the bulk of Louis' story deals with the particular concerns of his life as a vampire, he's intimately human throughout. If he'd like to come give lessons to the characters in my imagination's waiting room, he's welcome...but I'll make sure he's eaten first. One never can be too careful.

One of those days

Sundays are hard, and this time of year gets an extra edge. I'm an extrovert in a family of introverts and I must confess one of my dire secrets...I don't like spring. Too bright, and the temperature fluctuates, not to mention it's higher asthma risk season, so a part of me is always in watch mode. Slap one of those on an extrovert surrounded by introverts...or really, not, as I have to hunt them down, and take away any sort of structure to the day, and yeah, somebody wake me at five. Because our church meets at night, the normal source of being-surrounded-by-like-minded-people one might think of is not available until late in the day. When I am about ready to cash in my chips for that twenty four hour period anyway.

Checked email, checked Twitter, checked Facebook, grumbled "where is everybody" a time or dozen and ended up browsing YouTube for long ago favorite songs. No embedding on this one, but it fits my mood, and hey, might spark a story somewhere. Michael Martin Murphey, you sure know how to do a song right.

So I'm grumbly. I do not do downtime well at all. Reading more historical romance is high on my priority list, but I'm not with my books at the moment and I'm coming off reading a much anticipated book (nope, not saying which one) that bellyflopped for me in a big way. Sure, I have a huge TBR mountain range, but once I get into the right book, I get grumbly when yanked out of it and that's not the right attitude to bring to church, even though it's an understanding bunch.

I'm having one of those where-do-I-fit moments. I have writer buddies I love dearly, and wouldn't trade for the world, but all have slightly different specialities. Historical and time travel (which when I do it, I consider historical because I know me and I know where/when the HEA will happen) romance are my passion, and that's where I need to put most of my focus. Going further, I like my romances darker rather than lighter, and the deeper I can get into the characters' emotions, the better I like it. This is a skill I'm admittedly relearning, along with refining my writer voice. Which is probably a good way to channel these floundery afternoons. Methinks I sniff a story in this classic from Dan Seals, for example:



What's your go-to resource when feeling creatively adrift?

On Finding One's Voice, part the second and counting

Today's picture is a jumble of things. Artwork by my father, Rudy Carrasco, as a book cover for Party of Dreamers by Robert Lowry, turned into a poster for The Sims2 by me.

Said poster hung in a Sims2 house made by me, based on a floorplan for one of the original Levittown houses, for a Secret Santa gift on a Sims forum. Lots of things all mushed together to make the image for this entry. Which has nothing to do with any of the above.

Nor, strictly, does the new video song from Ben Folds and Nick Hornsby (with Pomplamoose) but I stumbled across it on my morning interwebs rounds. Then again, I adore Ben Folds' voice, both singing and artistic (plus his gorgeous piano work) and the way he has of encapsualting a whole life in a few minutes of music. Have him cowrite songs with Nick Hornsby, who wrote the book and script for About A Boy, one of my favorite movies ever, and it's an early birthday present. Stick an extra surprise song out there and I am already over the moon.

I was surprised to see one of the comments left after the video mentioning that while it was a good song, the viewer felt "like a lazy loser" because of the lyrics. :headscritch: I found it inspiring and encouraging, reminding me that I don't have to settle for the mundane. Your mileage, unless you are a clone of me, may and should be different. I love digging beneath the surface, down deep to where it may get a little uncomfortable (a college roommate dubbed my very first ms "how to completely mess with somebody's life in five hundred pages or more." She was right.) but when we find the root of the problem, that's where the healing can begin, and the climb up to the HEA.

Though I don't hold with the concept of a muse, if I had one, she'd be British. Trust me on this. Part of it comes from having Scottish neighbors from infancy through elementary school and my parents' rather international circle of friends. (Hello, Mrs Bloomer, wherever you are, and thanks for the UK influences.) The vast majority of my characters call the British Isles home (good for a historical author these days) and well, it feels like a natural fit. That sensibility that life can be hard at times, and if we're going through hell, well, we keep going; that resonates.

One song on the new Lonely Avenue album hit me right in the gut. "Picture Window" may be triggering for those who have had a seriously ill loved one, but what struck me was the "yes, that's exactly how it is" in certain moments, that struggle of anger and hope.

Very black moment, eh? Definitely something that speaks my language, and the combination of the New Year's fireworks seen from a hospital window has loads of perspective. Filing this one away for future inspiration.

On finding one's voice, part the first

Screenshot here is from one of my Sims2 photoshoots. Sims are very compliant models (especially if I turn free will off) and spending a few hours setting up a shoot and taking pictures lets ideas mull about in the story part of my brain. Sometimes I'll have something in mind when I start a shoot, sometimes not.

This particular shoot starred Jacqueline, my favorite model and one of my own sculpts, and her husband, Matthew (not pictured, but he's somebody else's design, though I've customized him.) I stage the shoots to get images to use in my art, both digital and otherwise.

Current art crush is mixed media artist Michelle Ward. Her most recent blog entry on scented candles made me nearly weep with recognition. For me, this is a good thing; I'm a dramatic sort of wench. The photos included are gorgeous, and, like Michelle, I use scent association to keep my mind on task when I'm in the office. Since autumn is now in full swing, time for me to lay in some appropriate scents. Anything with cinnamon, pumpkin or cloves is automatically good, and if the candle is named anything like "fireside," I need it. Summertime is not my season, and with the changing of the leaves, I get my superpowers back.

I do my best work in the cooler months, pounding keys and scribbling my way through prettified legal pads (current one coordinates with these) with hands encased in hand-knit mitts and listening to equally ornate music; current choices can include Meat Loaf, James Blunt, Coldplay, etc. I do tend towards male singers when I choose favorite music, though Mary Chapin Carpenter has some wonderful stuff as well. With my office assistant, Miss Skye O'Malley, (who is a kitteh) positioning herself in exactly the right spot for my hand to dip down at random intervals and scritch behind her ear or under her chin, that's a perfect setup.

Over the past week, I've been digging deep into what comprises an author's voice, inspired by listening to a workshop CD by Barbara Samuels. Her worksheet for that is on her site, and can be found here. Lots of great questions on the worksheet, and I will be posting a few of my answers to those later on. The most important thing I've learned from this so far is that our voice is made up of everything we have been, seen, done, experienced, wanted, whatevered. Surrounding myself with what I am intrinsically drawn to isn't being self indulgent; it's a smart investment in honing my voice and since my voice is the only one I can write with, keeping it honed is essential.

Trends come, trends go. Nobody can please everybody, but apple trees can only grow apples and I believe there's a bumper crop coming in this year.