I think I'd be more excited if the DC didn't have a soccer tournament this weekend. It's been really hot, lately, triple digits and I don't do well in the heat. We're heading to a city that's 10 degrees hotter than Petaluma. At least I don't have to run around in it like the boys will. Still, nothing on Monday.

And, I can now start the count down to Vishous and Lover Unbound.

There's a good hoo-ha going on now about SFWA and its boneheaded actions with an improper (from what I've heard) DCMA take-down notice to Scribd. Read about that in Cory Doctorow's BoingBoing post. I laughed when I heard what they'd done. (I'll come back later and stick in some links. Too late right now, I'm only holding out for the laundry). Only, really, it isn't very funny. This whole DCMA thing is so completely stupid, and every bad thing smart people predicted would result from the DCMA has come to pass and worse. What a stupid-ass piece of Corporate-purchased legislation that was.

But here's the thing: I don't know where I stand on the whole file-sharing business. The entire issue is so unbelievably polarized between a Copyright is Evil faction (See, for example, Tech Dirt, a site that has an especial hatred for copyright) and the Protect our Corporate Profits faction (RIAA andMPAA) and I really just feel like people (writes and musicians etc) who create the stuff that gets copyrighted are stuck in the middle.

Copyright is not evil. It's been around for hundreds of years because before there was copyright, authors, playwrights and musicians were ripped off. The creative folk are the Golden Goose, and copyright keeps corporations from killing us off. Copyright was the answer to an evil, so how can it be good to do away with it again?

I'm too tired to formulate an entire argument right now. But here's my dilemma: I don't know if it's true that file sharing actually helps the holder of the copyrighted material that gets shared. I hear people say it. I've never seen proof.

I don't make money writing unless people buy my books new. If readers have no incentive to buy new books, then I make no money and readers don't get to read new stories. But I also think that punishing fans with stupid lawsuits seems like a bad thing. Some of my books are out of print, and so far I'm not too worked up about finding out someone scanned my books (I hope they did a good job!!) and posted them for downloading. I can see how that can bring me readers interested in my books that are in print. But does it? Or do the file-sharers wait for someone to hit the copy machine? Christine Feehan's books are all in print (to my knowledge) Are the illegal copies on the net bringing her new fans who'll shell out money for her books? Seems the obvious answer is no, cuz all the books of hers I've seen file-shared are still in print.

The Internet, so far, doesn't touch the reach of print distribution. So does that mean it's not a big deal? I've never heard what an Ellora's Cave equivalent of a print run is. I know they've sold thousands of some titles, but I don't believe they've ever sold hundreds of thousands of a title, let alone millions. Of course, 90% of writers would be happy with the thousands...

How does a writer make money writing if all her work is available for free? I've never seen ANYONE answer that question. I wish someone would explain to me whether and/or how a pool of free copies is good. Is the point that that pool of free copies will never exist to the exclusion of paid and that the consumers of free will never erode the pool of consumers who pay? Please, I wish someone would just calmly sit down and explain that without the political hysterics. Do file sharers ever convert to pay buyers?

That's what I wanna know.

Labels: big fat hoo-ha, file sharing, writing

Playing with photos. The roses and dahlias here are in bloom and I've been going out in the late late afternoon to take pictures. I'm getting better and better at it. I figured out how to get fewer blurry shots.

Now I really have to go work on Scandal. I have a cool chapter to write and a work minimum to meet.

Labels: procrastination, Scandal, writing

Sigh.

I have got to stop staying up until 11:00 pm. So, yeah, I'm tired. Let's see... skipped the gym this am because I was too freaking tired. Went to work. Came home from work. Family stuff. Take son to soccer practice. I got some writing done. I wrote my emotional pain chapter last night; that came out good. In the car at practice, I spent some time staring at the laptop, then I realized I needed to move a chapter, so I did that and felt happy about about 20 seconds. Then I started working on the next chapter in which things get worse for my heroine Sophie. I wrote a paragraph, deleted it because it was stupid and boring and started with a different paragraph. I wrote some stuff and left off when I realized I had written mostly narrative and I needed to start putting people in the chapter. Practice was over.

Then we went to the bookstore because, well, my son has never been the world's most avid reader and for quite sometime I despaired. How, I've long worried, was I going to communicate with a boy who doesn't like to read much and who's good at math? Sidebar: Today, he was singing (a nonsense song) as he was doing his math homework and darned if he can't carry a tune! If he can sing, and it appears maybe he can, that's not a talent that comes from my side of the family. Sidebar Over

So, there was these series of books that enthralled him, the first book of which he HAD TO READ to himself for school. Wolf Brother by Michelle Paver. And he loved it enough to want to read the rest of them. Then came this series based very loosely on Greek mythology only set in modern times which he loved even more. He has a friend he admires very much, and they have quite a book club going between them. Because of all the books I've read to him, he and his friend had an amazing number of book-loves in common, and they recommended books to each other.

At his school, every day from 12:00 to 12:20, EVERYONE spends 20 minutes reading a book; the principal, the janitors, teachers, students, everyone. So, we found a book for him to take (after much complaining from him) and he finished it the other day, and begged to be taken to get the next one. And THEN, this was the most exciting part for me, he started reading it in the store and as we were walking back to the car. I had to hold his hand when we crossed the street because I didn't want him to trip or something. Suddenly, I seem to have reader on my hands, and this delights me even more than his being good at math and soccer. I'm just jealous about the singing thing. Rats. I've always wanted to be able to sing.

What these books have in common is lots of fighting, he says. Makes sense. He's a boy.

All right. I have to go meet my minimum word count. My heroine is about to find herself obliged to write to the hero to beg for assistance. Or something like that, I won't know for sure until I write the scene. Then I'm going to bed.

Labels: reading, Scandal, writing

I didn't sleep well last night. I stayed up too late, for one thing, and then didn't really sleep. Rats. I read Janet Evanovich's newest Stephanie Plum story Lean, Mean Thirteen and laughed pretty darn hard. Very funny. I bought a bunch of books, I couldn't resist them. More on that later. In the middle of not sleeping well, I woke up going, Oh my gosh! Sophie's brother dies. Sophie being the heroine of Scandal. On my way home from work today, the notion solidified even more, so now I'm off to cause my heroine tremendous emotional pain.

Labels: On Being Mean, Scandal, writing, writing scenes

So all right, it's 9:50pm, but for me that's late. I'm done with my writing day, having hit my minimum, and now I can stay up long enough to blog about it because I don't have to get up at 4:30 in the morning tomorrow. (Can you say Yippers!?) I can.

Took the DC to soccer practice and worked in the car with the headphones on listening to some tunes while I wrote the first of the two scenes I notebooked last night. A few things I intended turned out to be contrary to my characters, so I did it differently. I bought a pizza for dinner, and the DC ate on the way home so all I had to do was start the laundry and procrastinate for a while before I wrote the second scene for the new chapter.

So now the minimum is taken care of and I'm happy and tired. Going to bed now. I was going to write some really amusing text here, but this is the best I can do: Pretend this is really amusing text.

Night!

Labels: Scandal, writing, writing freaking writing

Thanks, Margaret, for coming up with that keen replacement for Thursday.

Blogging earlier in my writing day is tough. I feel like I'm taking up time I could be using to do things that feel like writing but aren't -- like email and MySpace and now Facebook and, uh, blogging -- but lately I've been so tired that blogging at the end of my day just hasn't been happening. The previous day's writing is at this point pretty much immaterial since that was yesterday and this is today or, if you will, Friday's yesterday. Be that as it may, yesterday, I worked in the car while my son was at soccer practice and ended up resurrecting an old chapter which needed some pretty minimal work in order to fit in around its new home. Which meant I had 5,000 "new" words yesterday. But now it's today and yesterday doesn't matter. Except if I hadn't written anything, I would be panicking.

Last night I finished Blackburn by Bradley Denton. OK, look. This isn't a book for just everyone, so if you read it and hate it or can't get past the first few chapters, well, all right. But I have to say it's a damn good book. The protagonist (Blackburn) is completely real. It isn't a book I'll forget anytime soon. If you're interested in seeing how an author makes a protagonist consistent within that world, this is a good book to study.

Here's why I recommend this book: Yesterday at the Day Job cube-room there were HVAC guys all over because the HVAC in the server room is getting fixed so as to avoid another server meltdown. One of the guys, the boss, I believe, goes in the server room, shuts the door and proceeds to have a cell phone conversation with a co-worker. His end is all yelling so everyone outside the server room, which is all of Systems, can hear him quite clearly. Part of his yelling included the phrase (remember, he's yelling) You HAVE to OVERESTIMATE every job! and a bunch of other stuff related to why this particular job should have been overestimated. The moment, the very moment I heard that phrase, I thought If Blackburn were here, he'd kill that guy. And it would have been the right thing to do in a sick and demented kind of way.

So, that's why you should read Blackburn.

But if you're the squeamish type, don't (only, you know, maybe you should just try to get over that for this book). Bradley Denton has written SFF and Horror, it looks like, which probably accounts for why his literary novel is so good. Genre writing teaches you a lot about getting a story to hang together. You have to leave out all the self-indulgent MFA crap. I should know, right?

For the geekish, here's my twitter stream: http://twitter.com/cjewel I don't post to it all that often, but hey, if you're a writer or a reader, you can jump right in and we'll be the first authors/readers on twitter. Right now I think it's mostly geeks. Basically, it's kind of a way of shouting over the fence hey! I'm going to cook dinner, then write?.

Labels: reading, Scandal, writing

I'm thinking of having a contest for worst blog post title, and that was my contribution. Pretty good, eh? So, fill in the blank, all righty? Thursday is taken. Think of some other answer.


Today was my son's first day of Jr. High. I asked how it was and he said, "Good." and was quite ready to carry on doing whatever it was he was doing when I came home. Sigh.

The Jr. High Darling Child must be taken to soccer practice in about five minutes. I'll be sitting in the car, writing. Working on Scandal. Off to it.

Labels: Scandal, writing

Yesterday at last I had something of a breakthrough for figuring out how to tackle Scandal. At least now I know which chapter to write and where it goes. And, I have ideas for other chapters. Whew! Part of the problem is I need to switch up my notebooking. Before I changed my exercise routine, I did that while I biked in the morning. But now I don't bike as often so I'm not focused when I sit down to write. Yesterday, I notebooked before I started writing, and after a paragraph or so I knew what to write. Today, I'll finish that up and then get clear on the chapters to follow. That's a big relief.

Last night I finished re-reading Mary Balogh's A Summer to Remember. This was my very first Balogh book. I'd gotten it from a book club when I failed to timely decline. I decided to keep the books. I disliked the cover, thought the title was stupid and hadn't ever heard of the author so I let the book sit around forever (months!!) until at last I was desperate to read something. As you might imagine, Oh My Gosh! The writing was just first-rate, the characters complex and full and the story was so utterly romantic that I was a fan-girl long before the end of chapter one. It was wonderful to read this story again. I've since read just about everything she's ever written. Sigh.

Back to work on Scandal.

Labels: Authors, Scandal, writing, writing scenes

Today, while I was busy procrastinating I made cookies. Twice. The first batch was Chocolate Chip, which I can now make without consulting the recipe. They came out great as always. Then I made sugar cookies. The dough needs to be refrigerated so I didn't suspect the looming tragedy until much later. Then I went grocery shopping.

Flashback: This morning I went rowing with another of the novices from my class. Two hours in a two-man (two-girl) skull. Fun. But our novice status was pretty apparent. We managed to get out of it whenever we rowed too close to the shore and ended up in the mud. The hardest part was dealing with the low tide and the wind. Whoa. I will say that being generally more fit (as opposed to actually fit) than the general population is an advantage. I don't seem to poop out... And, my very low key weight training with push ups and the like continues to be another incredible advantage. I'm floored by how little time and effort it takes for the perceived and, it seems, actual, benefit. Two days a week, probably 30-40 minutes total time when I exclude the stretching. That's it. I'm up to 22 push ups per rep, not including the really hard ones where you make a triangle with your thumbs and index fingers. Those are hard and I can only do 12 or so right now. It's hard work. But the free weights are a nice little break... Seriously.

OK. So now the groceries are put away. My son and I have taken down the garbage and recycling and walked down the road to where he'll pick up the bus. I timed it, and it's a 15 minute walk. Turns out it's much further away than I thought. But walking 15 minutes won't kill him. It's a busy road, though, and I worry a bit because cars are going slow along there at 55 mph. Back at the house, I decide to bake the sugar cookies.

Oh. My. Gosh. Total.Disaster.

The first batch looks, seriously, like fried eggs, without the yolk. They're so flat and bubbly I have to wait for them to cool down in order to get them off the cookie sheet. I know this because the first one crumpled up into so much gunk and then slowly melted down off the cooling rack. I made the rest twice as big, thinking maybe they wouldn't spread out, but all I got was bigger egg whites.

So, what went wrong, you might be wondering? I think I know. Apparently, somebody who wasn't me, poured flour into a container that had in it a white powdery substance that was, in reality, powdered sugar. Therefore, the flour I used was probably half powdered sugar.

Yeah. Cookie. Disaster. They tasted good. I mean, come on, they were mostly sugar and butter so how bad could they taste? But it was still a disaster.

Then I re-wrote my outline for Scandal and now I'm going to bed.

Labels: cookies, procrastination, Scandal

Yesterday I worked for 2 hours in the car while my son was at soccer practice. They've changed practice locations and the field is not as convenient to a cafe anymore. Frown. But, I found some shade and endured two hours of sheer torture. Why? Because it's early days for one thing. But this time I deleted 3 crap chapters that don't fit what I'm doing now. That's early crap removal for me, and I am feeling very proud of myself. Then I reached back into the past and pulled out a chapter from a long ago version and resurrected and reformed the chapter. Now I have a bit of a disconnect with what happens in this chapter and the previous ones, but I have some ideas about how to solve that. My job today is to follow what happened in my "new" chapter and go with it.

I'll get in a couple of hours of work before my son is up and I take him school shopping. New backpack, new shoes, some new shirts. Sigh. Can you spell poverty?

Labels: Scandal, writing

I have the day off, sort of. My son had his Jr. High orientation this morning and after that mom-related business we had to go get tickets for the school bus (no longer free as it was when I was a kid) and then find the driveway where he's supposed to catch the bus. He's got soccer practice later today. I'm hoping to get in a couple of hours of writing work right now.

In the meantime, I've continued reading. I just finished Suzanne Brockmann's Force of Nature which, naturally, I enjoyed. She's a wonderful writer. Then I started this odd little book called Blackburn by Bradley Denton and I'm reserving judgment. Beautifully written, but the content is quite disturbing. I'll report on that when I'm done with it.

Lately I've been thinking about writing, mostly because I'm working on Scandal which at this point is a lot of first draft writing, the books I've been reading to which I've reacted in a sort of meh way and those to which I have not reacted that way. For example, I really really enjoyed Lone Survivor even though I vehemently disagree with his take on the evil Liberals and/or Liberal Media. Would I have liked it better if he'd toned that down? Maybe. But he didn't need to. The story is fantastic with or without that, and at least he was honest (wrongheaded, but honest!). Then there were other stories that felt to me like they ought to have been more exciting. Lots of stuff was going on. The stakes were high for the characters but gosh I was just not taken away as I should have been. Perhaps, I've been thinking lately, because they didn't face any moral difficulties. They faced outside evil but were never morally threatened by it. There was no chance of the characters making the wrong decision.

And, I am now compelled to add this thought. Lately, I've read some books by big authors that are not as well-written as they should be. I read them and felt the author was rushed or careless or that she/he needed another month or two of work. Deadlines help get the work done, but they can also keep a book journeyman good instead of awesome. This problem probably also has something to do with most writers having to have a day job to pay the bills. Sigh.

I like my literary landscape fraught with moral ambiguity. Write me a story where I'm reading something that ought to be evil but I'm cheering for it anyway. Someone do something reprehensible and yet have that be fascinating. Anyway, I was just thinking about that. Kind of half-baked. And thinking about baking, Scandal awaits.

Labels: futzing around, reading, Scandal, writing

Scandal is going reasonably well. I'm slowly working my way through scenes, just going with the flow as it turns up on the page and surprises me. Tired. Going to sleep. Am meeting my minimum so right now, even though it's first draft time, I'm OK. Two months from now I'll have a lot of crap to fix. Joy! True.

Labels: Scandal, writing, Writting. freaking writing

So, um. I've been reading a lot. I read Sherrilyn Kenyon's Devil May Cry and enjoyed it. There was a lot of her gods-inhabited world in it and it was interesting to see how that worked. I keep hearing that she's going to write Ash's story. Awesome if true.

Yesterday I read (in one sitting) Marcus Lutrell's Lone Survivor, and boy, oh boy. (I'd give a link to him directly, but he doesn't seem to have a website.) I really, really loved this book. It's the account of his SEAL team's mission in Afghanistan. If you're curious about what it's like there, this book is full of details you have to look hard to find elsewhere. I do have to quibble with his propensity to blame liberals and/or the liberal media for perceived slights, but he's entitled to his interpretation, wrong though I think it is. I have a bleeding heart, and I don't blame the military for their actions in combat and frankly, I don't believe much of the US does either. If a trained soldier has to make a me-or-them decision in battle, then let's not 2nd guess the instincts our tax dollars helped give them. I do think there's something wrong when it's reported that soldiers planned and carried out the rape and murder of an Iraqi family. I'm not stupid or naive enough to believe everything I read, but reports like that need to be investigated. Personally, to the extent I have any sort of an informed opinion, I think a military and Commander in Chief who allow an environment in which soldiers take the blame for the political undesirability of deaths in war might be a better target. At least a shared target.

And really, that's a minor aside from an absorbing, amazing and inspiring story. It's just that every time he went off on liberals, I couldn't help thinking, I'm a liberal, and I don't feel that way. Not to mention that there were times when he simply failed to account for the complexity of the world and the way it works. Liberals make a convenient scape goat for him. I suppose it's ironic that as he goes off about how it's the fault of liberals that he has to worry about getting charged with murder so he can't do the needful, as it were, it's his religion that keeps him from casting his vote in a militarily correct way. Um, so maybe the big-bad liberals are right? All right, I have to say I think there's some intellectual dishonesty going on there. But, heck, he's been brainwashed by Neo-Cons and the fascist Right, so can we blame him? (Right. That was Carolyn's patented sarcasm. Move along. I'm just evening the score in an equally dishonest manner.)

As I read I kept thinking the author's name sounded familiar, and then when I read the thank yous at the very end, I realized why. I also read Dick Couch's The Making of SEAL class 228, and Marcus Lutrell was a member of that class and is mentioned in that book. I picked up Lutrell's book because it's been getting some good reviews and is selling quite well. Way worth it. As I said, this liberal bleeding heart read the book in one afternoon. He and his fellow soldiers are tremendously brave and I'm glad there are men like him in the military.

I also read A Taste of Honey by Jami Alden. This was three novellas about three brothers finding love and hot sex. Grin. I very much liked the first two stories and I loved the last one. I cried at the end, and I hardly ever cry over books.

Then I re-read my previous two historicals, just to see how I did it way back then in prehistoric times, but I probably shouldn't have. All I wanted to do was go back and fix crap. I'm a different writer now, writing a different sort of book. (Gee, that was what, three years ago?)

The Darling Child had a soccer tournament this weekend, so I was off being soccer mom most of Saturday and Sunday. They did not win the tournament this year because they had to play two under-14 teams and I am here to tell you that the difference between U-13 boys and U-14 boys is spelled T E S T O S T E R O N E. My son is very tall for his age and most of those boys were much, much taller and they had muscles. So, his team got their butts kicked. They won their game against the U-13 boys, and that was good for them.

I think I opened Word Perfect a few times and stared at the blank screen. What else? Played on MySpace. Friended people. Commented. Important stuff you know. Checked my spam catcher. I have so many friends who want to send me ecards! Worshippers, too. Just wait til I whip myself back into shape, then we can talk worship. Until then, I'm afraid you and your malware just have to go ka-blooie!

Oh, yeah. I did driveway torture today after a week of pretending I wasn't getting sick and then 3 days of actually being sick. I missed a lot of gym days. I was slower by a minutes or so, which meant I only had to do 1.5 minutes of sprints to make 45 minutes total torture time. But I didn't have to stop. All four miles well done. I hope to add another up-and-down in the next couple of weeks. Plus, seeing as how it was 4:30 am and in the boonies when I was running (slogging?), I did see the tail end of the Perseid Meteor Showers. Wow. Breathtaking. I think I'm up for 3 days of DWT, 2 days of resistance training and a couple days of rowing. I'll do weights tomorrow and see how I am Wednesday for DWT. I might do a regular run.

Also, during the DWT this morning, I figured out at last what to do in the next scene for Scandal, so I guess I really have no choice but to go write that. Now.

Last thing: you know I am the master of procrastination because I did not have to resort to housework or other chores. It's advanced procrastination. Don't try it at home unless you're trained or have supervision.

Oh, and Patti O'Shea? If I had the money, I'd get a Mac. I grilled Marjorie Liu about her Mac experience and that decided me. If I had the bucks, I'd get a Power Book.

Labels: exercise, procrastination, reading, Scandal

Working on Scandal. Um, there must be something to say. Yeah. Like, I really dislike writing the first draft of anything. Except, all that stuff that doesn't end up in the book gets me to the stuff that does end up in the book. Which is good. But this is the really hard part for me.

Labels: Scandal, writing

After I heard that author Ronda Thompson had passed away, I got to thinking about what I might do to keep her spirit alive for me and others. That's a dumb way of putting it, but that's all I have right now. I decided I would watch Publisher's Marketplace for news of debut authors and send them an email just saying, hey congratulations or something like that. My silly idea would be to share the excitement and maybe even start a dialogue with a new author about what to expect or whatever.

Well, gosh. Color me surprised. The first 5 "debut" authors announced in PM weren't really debut authors. Google made it pretty clear that all of them had previous novels to their credit, a couple under other names. Fiction titles, people! If you've published a novel before, even if it's under a different name, sorry, but no novel after that one is your debut. I found three who didn't appear to have previous publication of novels. They also didn't have websites. I could have emailed their agents, but gee, what a waste of the agent's time. I don't want agents or agent's assistants hating me for any reason. So, really, WTF? These are all authors with agents, why the heck didn't their agents tell them to get a website long before the sale? And if they were told, why the heck didn't they do it? Today, at last, a real debut author with a website. He's experienced in non-fiction, hence the website. He's a clueful writer.

This whole experience made me decide Ronda had the right idea anyway. Read new authors and let them know if you liked their book. Simple. Easy. And it really makes a difference, as many of us out there can attest. Plus romance authors have at least one clue and a website on which to talk about it. Anybody can do this. Doesn't matter if you're published or not. Authors really truly love to hear that someone connected with their work. I know Ronda made people feel good, and she made friends, too. Good for everyone. Read new authors and if you liked their book, write and tell them so.

Anyway, I have to stop procrastinating and get some work done. I miss Ronda and I wish I could email her and get another amusing reply from her.

Labels: Authors, Ronda Thompson, Scandal

Weekends just never last long enough. Sigh.

After a lot of procrastinating, I sat down and started work on Scandal. It went like this: Read chapters 1-3- feel reasonably happy. Look at chapter 4 - realize it's boring and delete it. Look at chapter 5 -- realize it's boring, too, and delete it. Start a new chapter 4 and then a new chapter 5. And in between all this, make cookies, go grocery shopping, take pictures, remind son he's supposed to clean the bathrooms, check email, MySpace, stare out the window, do laundry...

I've already exceeded my minimum for Scandal, but right now I'm struggling with a transition. Probably it's a mistake to try one at all, but I have to have one in this case. I'm keeping it as short as possible, but that makes for exposition and that's dull. At any rate, if I end up deleting it, it'll be short.

So, as mentioned above, my son cleaned one of the bathroom showers. He did a pretty OK job, but I had to clean up after him. According to him, he had no idea cleaning a shower would involve water. Things went downhill from there. But as mentioned, the shower looks clean. Possibly not well-rinsed. He really wants a new game for his DS Lite, and around here there's only one way for him to make money. . .

Then I look at him in his pretty-darn-new size 14 slims and realize they are too short and tight in the crotch. Spent $125.00 buying him 16 slims. He has one pair of 16 slims, which I bought not that long ago and which were far too long. He had them on as we were taking down the garbage and the recycling, and I could see they are now the perfect length. Before, he would have been stepping on them. They were my insurance pants for him. That pair of pants will have to do for him until the new ones come.

We're babysitting my brother's dog, Boo, a big golden lab with a tail that can wreak havoc. He's the world's happiest dog and he can't figure out why the little dogs don't want to play with him. He's stolen ALL the dog toys, as he cannot be five minutes without something in his mouth. He's a menace, but so darn happy no one holds it against him.

Back to work on Scandal, then off to bed.

Labels: chores around the house, Scandal

I got something icky and came home from work Wednesday and pretty much slept the rest of the day. I pried myself out of bed to take the son to soccer practice then got us home and went back to sleep. Slept most of Thursday, too. When I wasn't sleeping, I was reading. This morning, I went back to work and even made it to the gym. Just 45 min of cycling, nothing hard. I have my make-up rowing class tomorrow so I'm going to bed in just a bit.

Recent Reads

• MaryJanice Davidson, Sleeping with the Fishes, Half-mermaid, half-human heroine. Very funny.


• Cait London, On the Edge, an empath coming into her powers. Billed as Romantic Suspense. Liked it.


• Liz Maverick, Wired, This gets a big WOW. Really interesting, absorbing.


• Janet Evanovitch, Metro Girl, Very funny. I laughed a lot.


• Angela Knight, Master of Dragons, Liked it. Kept me up too late


• Mary Balogh, Simply Love, What can I say? I love Balogh, and I loved this book.

What else? I tried to write some on Scandal but I couldn't get Nikodemus, the hero of Magellan's Witch, out of my head. But now it's been a few days and I've read a lot, so I think I can start fresh this weekend. I have two scenes mapped out and I've started thinking about how my heroine is going to move through this story.

About Magellan's Witch: I don't think I've actually ever mentioned what the book is about. There's a witch. And a mage named Magellan. And there's fiends who have been known to destroy the lives of humans they possess. And Magellan's witch needs to figure who the good guys are.

Those of you who know me, take a guess, is the hero a mage or a fiend?

Labels: Magellan's Witch, reading, Scandal