The Snowball

Stopping mid story to examine the direction of a plot strikes me as a bold and possibly foolish thing to do–at least on the gut level. “Why would you stop now?”  my instincts ask.  “You’re on a roll–keep writing as long as you can come up with words to put down.” But my reasonable, rational

A Picture, A Story, and A Rambling Post

But the pic and story have nothing to do with one another beyond sharing space on this rambling blog.

First the picture.  After coming home from church this afternoon I stayed in my dress, since it’s comfortable, but quickly transformed to stocking feet, since I’ve never had much success curling up in almost knee-length boots even if they don’t have heels.  Of course, that meant I had to slip something on when it was time to go outside and call the cats and close up the barn.

No problem, I have a pair of rubber boots I keep by the door for just such an occasion.

What do you think of my outfit?  For some reason the family found it amusing, but blue works with blue, right?

Velvet and Rubber Boots.jpg

So now for the story, completly unrelated to the above.

Whenever I’m not writing lately I’m checking out agent info, et al, so that, in the eventuality of this book arriving at a polished place, I have a list of agents to which I will send a query.  It’s actually rather difficult to come up with a list of reputable, accessable, compatible agents, and it requires a deal of research, I’m finding.

However, Kristen Nelson has been on the list for some time, by dint of the good things I hear about her via the writer grapevine, plus her doing a fabulous job at WorldCon on her panels and also having the good humor to be graceful and chat with me for a minute in the hall.  I also enjoy her blog, and whilst hanging around there came across this top 25 oft-repeated inclusions in YA list.

I was gratified to see that I have done none of them, nor has it occurred to me to do these things.  Perhaps my unique background is good for one thing–I’ve never been in danger of thinking like everyone else.  However, number 22, ‘a tiny scar through the eyebrow, sometimes accompanied by an embarrassing story’ caught my eye because I have such a scar!  And the story was kind of embarrassing at the time…

[this is the part where I tell the unrelated story stories]

My First Word Meter

I just flipped a coin to decide between the two titles still in the running for this novel.  Heads, Night Fire; Tails, Shadow Dance. Flip, flip, flip Catch–Tails.  Shadow Dance it is. Isn’t it beautiful the comfort one can derive from such sophisticated scientific methods of problem solving? I’m enjoying the writing of Shadow Dance very

Ups and Downs

You know we’re off on a wild ride when I misspelled ‘down’ in the title, before tabbing to the text, and am posting after midnight so the date will be off, but here we go: I got my (forwarded) letter from WOTF today.  It congratulated me on my Honorable Mention for Fist of the Black

Fall Coloring My Writing

We’re just beginning to see some foliage change, and that combined with the beautiful and crisp weather is making it difficult for anyone so unfortunate as to be stuck inside.  I’m getting out some, but never enough, so I’m lucky that my novel begins in the fall, with Halloween preparations.  This way I can live

Chilling Delight

We have a new fridge!  It’s been a very long wait–I could go back and count the days, but since that would only make me angry, I won’t–but at last it has arrived.  Given how crippled my cooking has been, I’m half tempted to to buy a small back-up, just in case this one ever

Tips for Writing…and Life?

I tried to leave a comment on James’ blog, but since I lack the Belonger of Google password and such, I’ll have to link it instead.  His post was about how to make characters more interesting, and how to choose what defines that character.  As he puts it, the character becomes much more interesting to the

Screaming

And flipping cartwheels–that too.  Becca’s got a contract on her book, Hush, Hush!  After going to auction, no less.  I’m beside myself thrilled for her, and feel highly privileged to have seen it in the premie stages.  It’s also very encouraging, since I know Becca put lots of love, sweat and tears into rewrites and

Cats and Cameos

We adopted two cats, just past kitten age, that have since taken over the barn and property.  The grey-striped and well-dressed fellow below is Shadow, And this lovely orange lady is Apricot.   With just a bit of persuasion they’ve agreed to put in cameo appearances in my books, so long as the reference is clearly