The Shards of Crimson Contest is officially open. Check out the contest page and enter to win cool stuff.

Oh, I forgot to mention, there is a bright spot in this semester of school. The writer whose work I suspected might be brilliant turned in a re-write of her previous submission and it was brilliant. She's a major talent. Her name is Holly Wilcox and one day we'll be reading about the prizes she's won. I get goosebumps thinking about her writing. Wow.

Every author knows talent isn't enough. You have to finish the damn book, too. As long as Holly does that, we're all in for an incredible ride. Tuesday I intend to make sure she'll let me say I knew her when.

Do they ever? No. But still. I've been driving the rental car while my poor smushed Saturn is in car-hospital. I find out tomorrow what it will take to fix it. The rental is this cute Chevy thing, no idea what model it is. It looks like the PT Cruiser's older brother. I have to say, I like it. It drives really well and the interior has a nice design sense.

Yesterday I mostly avoided writing. I read Darkly Dreaming Dexter which has got to be one of the weirdest yet most enjoyable books I've read in a long while. Recommended read! I also read some of the research I have on ancient demons, mostly Assyrian stuff. Interesting, but no inspiration yet. I haven't read enough to reach critical information mass and start assimilating the knowledge into any useful insights. Well, maybe a teeny one. But it's too teeny to do anything with. Mostly, I just want the knowledge to be hanging out there in the gray-matter informing my story in strange and unexpected ways. That's not too much to ask, is it? I finished reading Harry Potter 6 to my son. Hopefully, I'll talk him into doing the 3rd Bartimeus book next.

Today, I got additional prizes for the Shards of Crimson anthology and then, my son was with me by the way, my son started complaining about being starving and I realized - horrors! that I had forgotten to make him breakfast. So I took him to one of his favorite places to eat and he promptly ate $15 of food in a flash. Oh, bad Mom! Did a bit more shopping then came home and carved pumpkins. My son did a barfing pumpkin. (If you haven't seen one for yourself, picture a nauseated face with an open mouth from which you hang the pumpkin innards so it looks like it's barfing.)

Writing-wise I'm feeling panicky about Possession, and freaked about Scandal (nee The Rake). The other day when I was reading paper copy, the first chapters seemed pretty good, but then it got boring and stupid, which depressed me. That's why yesterday I was engaging in avoidance behavior. I wasn't mentally ready to go fix it. Today, I worked on the chapters a bit. I stopped dead at Chapter 4 because that's where my first issue crops up. Fortunately, I think I just figured out how to fix it.

I've had a crazy week. Insanely busy at work due to a lack of planning by others, which is always the worst kind of busy. You need to do this, we're going to production tomorrow. And then after I do that, Someone else says, Hey, I didn't know that was happening. All my stuff is broken. Can we fix that ASAP? [Insert graphic of Carolyn having a silent fit.]

Moving right along. I got rear ended on the way home from work and now my car is all smushed. Sigh. It's at the car-doctor's now. I've been working from home on a project for work. !! Yuck, and it's a glacially slow process. I'm doing this while I wait for a file to transfer so I can proceed and freaking finish this.

To really make this a joy, my son is wandering the house moaning bored, bored, bored.... Right now he'd rather be pissy than do anything about his alleged boredom.

Argh!!

In writing news, things are generally trending upward except when they are trending sharply downward.

I went to bed early last night and I think I'm going to do the same now. I've barely recovered from the weekend's work and then the lightning fix on Monday. School continues to be . . . difficult. I am more and more tempted to oh, well. Best not go there. I didn't do much writing work yesterday other than to notebook Scandal. It's hard to immerse myself in one project (as in this weekened) and then immediately turn around to work on something else. Scandal and Possession (for lack of a better title at the moment) are two completely different books.

Today I didn't write a word. Tomorrow I have to work late. Ick. Hopefully not too late.
I'm going to bed before my nose hits the keybg fh akjf%$...........!

zzzzzzzzz

Let's see, I worked like a maniac all weekend (in between responsibility stuff, like the kid, grocery shopping and feeding said kid) and for better or worse I'm done. It's been sent off to my agent. Yes, I did sleep late and when I started writing again, I did solve my previously insoluble issue. Rather handily, I'd say.

A big shout out to Megan F who read my revised synopsis and helped me improve it drastically (but I still suck at synopses...) and then even read the chapters in an amazingly fast turn around. Wow.

Possession is now renamed to something better, but probably not final. I'm calling it Ruby Eye right now.

And now a rant.

I HATE Word. Word is an abomination. It's horrible, awful, limiting and the entire scheme of the program is obscure and stupid. It's obvious to me that no one at Microsoft has ever talked to a fiction writer about what they need to do to properly format a manuscript. If they had, it would be easy and it's not. Alas, the Borg is out there and even otherwise wonderful people are a part of the collective. I am forced (kicking and screaming you may be sure!_ to actually provide documents in Word format that is properly set up so that I won't be embarrassed when editors look at it.

Blech.

Rant over.

It's late and I have to get to bed.

I have revisions due to my agent which originally I'd agreed to finish in three weeks. Totally doable. But on account of things I am not yet at liberty to talk about, I now have to have them to her by Monday. All righty! Only my son had a soccer game today in Napa and then my brothers (they're twins) had to go and have their birthday party tonight, and even though I'm almost done with my first pass through her notes and my revisions as a result, I am now officially brain dead. I have reached a point where I have to confront an issue and I can't see my way past it. Now, undoubtedly tomorrow I will see the solution, but right now I can't. So I'm going to bed and since tomorrow is a soccer free day, I'm going to sleep late and awake with a fresh mind.

I hope.

Uh oh. It's 7:51 PST and I forgot I have school tomorrow. I haven't read Freud and I haven't read the papers. Darn.

On the other hand, I've been happily working away on Scandal and getting some good work done. Freud would find that forgetfulness (this little parapraxis of mine, somehow forgetting something I HAVE to do) quite meaningful. As do I actually. I'd rather work on Scandal than critique. Not to mention that after last week's debacle I didn't want to go to class yesterday, but I did. The prof very gently took the class to task. But some of the primary players were not in attendance. Well, whatever. I'm in it and there's no getting out of it.

Anyway, I am at the moment totally pleased with the way Scandal is coming along. But how I have to go critique and tomorrow at the gym I will read Freud. With luck, I'll get several chapters ahead again. My agent has gotten back to me with revision suggestions on Possession (since CK, not surprisingly, hasn't read it within the option period) before it's shopped elsewhere. I agreed to have revisions done in 3 weeks. Doable. If only I could forget to rewrite the synopsis!

Sometimes writing is like pulling teeth. I am in grave danger of having a clean room today. So far I am resisting the siren call of well, anything but writing. I've taken out the garbage and emptied the shredder and tossed some magazines I'll never get around to reading. Now I'm eyeing some of the paper on my desk. I'd probably be able to write easily if there weren't all this paper here.

Must resist . . . be stronger than paper. I am a rock. Oh, wait, paper beats rock. I am scissors!! Yes. Scissors! Which reminds me. Where are my scissors? I should go find them. Wonder if they're under this pile of paper?

The good news is I started writing a chapter whose sole purpose was to get me from one interesting chapter to the next one. And I stopped. I deleted it all and started over with a chapter that now has my hero and heroine in it. And now, I am going to stop procrastinating and go get right to the exciting bits. You know, with kissing and stuff in it.

[Rant deleted]

Shoot. It was a good one, too.

School is dragging me down into a pit of black despair.

Scandal is going OK. I have 10 minutes to write 1000 words.

Nope, in fact, that's not going to happen. The best I can do is get off the 'net and go move this one chapter to another place and make my hero propose to the heroine. She's going to say no. Poor guy.

Miss Snark is priceless today. As the great Snark herself would say, Beverage Alert!

I have nothing nearly as funny to add. Today my son and I made 70 chocolate chip cookies for a party at his school tomorrow. He did most of the work, but I did the hot work, getting them out of the oven. Then I had to read Freud for school and then critique. One was unexpectedly good. Fudge, my dog, is insisting that he must be held near my neck. This makes typing impossible.

Scandal is coming along. Things are complexifying in the way they need to in order not to suck majorly.

Huh! I just got a call on my cell phone. Market Research, looking for residents of California under the age of 23.
M Researcher Crank: "Would that be you?"
Me: "No."
M Researcher Crank: "Thank you for your time."
End of call.

Just another day in the life of a Romance Author. Thrills, eh?

Despite the date being October 8, today was the 1st day of northern California's spectacular October weather. Today, the temperature was perfect. Not hot, not cold, just so perfect you can't help but smile. My son had a friend come over after their soccer game this morning and they were outside at the creek the whole time. I made cookies and they came up long enough to get warm giant cookies. Then they went back to their dirt clod throwing contest.

Last night I finished entering the paper edits for Scandal and then re-printed the chapters and started reading again. Oh, at last! The opening chapters rock. My big risk is paying off. I was up until 1:45 am. And since I had to get up at 7:30am to make a decent breakfast for my son and then get him to his soccer game, it should be no surprise that I fell asleep at 3:30 pm. Since he has to be at games an hour before they start, I've begun to drop him off and then sit in the car to write until 15 minutes before the game starts. If I sit with the parents, I talk and chat. Since my son had a friend over this afternoon, I got some extra work done then. The nap was one of those involuntary things that was necessary to function. I'm still tired, though and will try to get to bed early tonight. I fed my son leftovers for dinner, so that was fast. Now I need to take pics of the Crimson City prizes and then start entering in the new paper edits.

Off to work.

Today I got a bunch of stuff off my plate. I finished a critique for someone (not you Megan!) who I will never ever critique for again. What a jerk. He has acted VERY unprofessionally and then had the nerve to ask me immediately afterward what I thought. Hmm. I heard nearly 15 minutes of public viciousness directed at me personally. So gee, what do you think I think? That I was way too nice to go ahead and finish critiquing for him, that's what I think. So that's done and I'll never have to do it again.

Then I finished critiquing for Megan. Good stuff there! And in between soccer and taking a nap, I did a read through of Scandal and can see what works and where I've fallen short. I eliminated a character today, which will hose my word count, alas, but oh, well. I had to do it.

Tomorrow after my son's soccer, I hope to do the rest of the reading for school and then take pictures of the prizes for the Shards of Crimson contest - details coming soon! Watch this space.

Also, since I'm on a roll, I'm reminded of someone who was recently complaining that she has no time to write. She's unpubbed, working full time, has a few outside interests, unmarried and no kids. Many excellent suggestions were made:

write for 15 minutes every night before you go to bed I'm too tired or else it's too late;

write on your lunch hour -- It's too noisy at work

Write outside or in your car on your lunch hour -- I grew up where it's hot. I can't write outside

Get up early and write in the morning-- I'd have to get up at 5:00 am! And I'm not a morning person!

Oh, for crying out loud. I know some writers who would love to have her lack of family responsibilities. I know writers who aren't morning people who f'n get up in the morning anyway. I know writers who write on their lunch hours even though it's noisy or sit in the car, or write at the gym (guess who!) or write for an hour or maybe just 15 minutes or in the bathroom.

Look, you aren't a writer if you don't write. So quit complaining and just do it.

My dad's dog had to be put to sleep today. He went everywhere with my dad. Everybody at the hospital (where my dad was a doc before he retired) knew Duncan. A few years ago, a 95 year old patient of Dad's passed away and, no fooling, left Duncan his 1968 Chevy pickup. His kids called to tell him about the provision in the will. At that time, Dad was driving a 1966 Dodge van (and even then, 1966 was many many years in the past), so Duncan's 68 Chevy was a step up in the world for them both. The gentleman lived down the road from us and Dad and Duncan made house calls there, just to keep an eye on him and make sure he was OK. Duncan's illness was short, which was a mercy, but he deteriorated so fast there wasn't really time to say goodbye. My brothers came over to help bury him out by the barn. Today, when I talked to Dad about Duncan, he had to turn away, because he was too upset to talk anymore. And that was very sad. The house seemed very quiet without him.

Yikes. Still alive, still insanely busy. Still working on Scandal and still thinking maybe it's going well. I hit 20K words which feels like something more than nothing to speak of. I have two more chapters/scenes to write and then I'll do an intensive set of edits and see where I stand quality-wise. I want to do one more read through of the Shards of Crimson galleys before I send them back. There are very few changes, but there were two bizarre bits that just have to have been some strange glitch caused by aliens landing in NY or something. In one, half of a sentence was missing and replced with the word "bounds"

But here's the current tragedy of my severely time-impacted life: I have five Jack Reacher novels that I have not read. And I can't read any of them until I am more solidly along with Scandal. Back to it. I have 45 minutes to bang out 1,000 words.