Carolyn's Blog

Monday, December 31, 2007

Happy 2008!

For a lot of you, it's already 2008. Not yet here, but I'll be in bed before the year ends. Now that I've gotten the rant out of the way, I can reflect a bit. First off, I expected to be watching Buffy The Vampire Slayer with my son, but his cousin ended up inviting him over, so I'm all alone tonight. With no further ado, here's my imitation of Samuel Pepys.

2007

Considering there was a period when I thought my writing career might be over, 2007 was good for me, writing-wise. Of course, in late 2006 I signed with my agent, Kristin Nelson, and boy. I'm in the right place. In 2007, she sold two more books for me one of which was Scandal. For anyone who thinks once you're published all your worries are over, let the history of this book put that myth in a well-deserved coffin. Nail it shut, people.

I sent Kristin 4 proposals, one of which, yes, was Scandal, then called The Rake, and before that called The Heir. She loved one of the 4, really liked My Wicked Enemy (which she quickly sold in at auction in a two-book deal) didn't know what to make of Shift (Me neither, but it will be cool when I turn my attention to it.) As for Scandal? That proposal almost sunk me with her. She told me if that's all she'd seen, she'd have rejected me out of hand. Ouch. And, she also told me, Just start over. So, okay. I did, and when she blogged about editors looking for historicals, I sent her the revised stuff and she sold it, too. A book that went through two really wretched drafts and one misbegotten rewrite hash of the first chapters. My rewrite went back to what I loved about Sophie and Banallt. The final result this time was, I really do think, pretty spectacular. And let me tell you, around November or so, I thought I'd never finish on deadline. Impossible. I turned it in early. Go figure.

So, as far as I'm concerned, writing-wise, the sale and completion of Scandal ranks as one of my biggest accomplishments of 2007.

Another, naturally, is finishing My Wicked Enemy and then revising the hell out of it in something short of three weeks to turn it into something totally neat.

Starting Xia's story is another.

Finishing my MA is English. That was huge. Yay!!

Have a wonderful 2008 everyone. Now, back to Xia, I haven't hit my minimum yet.

Labels: agents, My Wicked Enemy, Scandal, writing

(2) comments

Rant Alert! (Carolyn Finds a Practical Use for Grad School)

Save yourself while you can.

Oops. Too late.

I got off from work early and decided to finish reading my Fall 2007 Author's Guild Bulletin in which volume is contained a lengthy essay entitled Goodbye To All That ¹ penned by Steve Wasserman, former editor of the Los Angeles Times Book Review. The essay was originally published in the Columbia Journalism Review September/October 2007. You can read the essay here.

Here's my entire thesis:

It's not all or none, people!

Here's a sub-plot (that's writer's humor for This is totally off the cuff, otherwise it's not a rant.)

Maybe there's another reason no one reads the book review section...

I'm going to riff of Valleywag and give the 100 word version of Mr. Wasserman's essay²:

Nobody reads important books anymore, we're all going to hell in a hand-basket and it's all the fault of those low-culture morons plus popular fiction. The only way to save democracy is to revive the Book Review section (but for dog's sake, don't do it any differently.) Keep it exactly the same so we'll all still find it mostly irrelevant.

Pretty much, that's what he's saying. Maybe I inserted a bit of Carolyn Rhetoric^TM in there. Can you find it? Because that's an advanced technique and I only know about it because I had to take Rhetorical Theory in grad school. If you try that at home, just be careful, okay?

Right. So, western culture can only be saved by reviewing IMPORTANT books in newspaper Book Review sections. That's IMPORTANT in big red letters because he doesn't mean anything else. Marxism Alert! He means ONLY stuff the cultural elite find important. Substitute "Rich White Men" for cultural elite to round out the typical Marxist view. He doesn't get off the hook for mentioning a Spanish nun. And now let's go to my favorite bit because it's soooo Post-Modern and Post-Modern, folks, is grad-school-ese for ist-isms³: sexist, elitist and freaking annoying.

I often tried to imagine what I might do if I had been, say, the literary editor of The Times of London in 1900 when a then obscure Viennese doctor named Sigmund Freud published his first book, The Interpretation of Dreams⁴ Suppose I'd had on my desk only two books -- Freud's and, say, the next surefire best-selling novel by Mrs. Humphrey Ward, the Danielle Steele of her day.

I'm sure you can guess where he was going with this. Because we all know that if only we eliminated the Mrs. Wards of the world from the literary landscape, we would all leap to read whoever is the equivalent of Freud today. (I have no idea who that is because I'm pretty sure all the theorists I read in Grad school were dead. Except Kristeva, she made my head hurt, so it's probably her. I think she's still alive.) Because no one would ever in all the world read both Freud and Ward. I mean, what kind of freak would do that?

Ohmygod. Wait! I have. I've read Freud. And years ago I did read some Ward. Because I was one of the massive readers he talks about. 20 books at a crack from the library when I was a kid. And now, I still read a couple books a week. Unless I'm on deadline and working at the collapse of civilization. bwahahaha!

And since when has Nora Roberts or J.R.Ward ever been reviewed in any Book Review section of the sort Wasserman eulogizes? I think the answer's never. There's a really fine rhetorical device. Set up a hypothetical dilemma that didn't happen in 1900 and hasn't ever happened today, either. And now, we can all conclude that Mrs. Ward (J.R, are you listening??) is single-handedly responsible for the decline of Western Civilization.

And that's my point. It's not Freud vs. Mrs. Ward. (But, if it came to a throw down between the two, Freud would die because Mrs. Ward would shoot him dead before he had a chance to explain the significance of her weapon. Either that or Vishous⁵ would perform a laying on of hands and zzzttt goodbye Sigmund.)

I think more people probably know who Sigmund Freud is than can identify Mrs. Humphrey Ward. And it's not because of The London Times Book Review. Sorry.

Intellectual importance isn't determined in The Los Angeles Times Book Review (especially not now, I guess!) mean little snicker (ohh, prosody!) It's determined in Universities by professors and students who rigorously study difficult issues and who figure out stuff like the parts of Freud that are complete and utter crap. (There's no penis envy, trust me. Admiration and maybe longing, sure, if I'm in the mood) and which parts have something useful to add. Like possibly dream interpretation. What Mr. Wasserman is actually suggesting is an intellectual trickle down theory. Please, editor, let me inform the Proletariat!

Wasserman: You there! Put down that Ward!
Reader: Hey! I didn't get to read what happens to Phury!
Wasserman Here. Take this edition of The Lais of Marie de France.
Reader: But I already read that.

See, the thing is the really massive readers do both.

Is there some reason you can't have a short review of J.R. Ward's latest and a longer review of Ransom Seaborn? That's my question. I don't doubt for a minute that Ransome Seaborn deserves a long, intelligent and thought provoking analysis. Ward maybe not so much. But not none, either. And if they're both there in the same section... But that way lies heresy.

. . . . .
1. Yeah, I get that the title comes from Robert Grave's WWI novel Goodbye To All That. Isn't that ironic? I mean that someone like moi would get the reference?

2. Don't count. I'm sure it's not 100 words.

3. I just now coined that word, so don't say you did. It was me.

4. Just to repeat viz Freud: Professor Kunat, you were right and I was wrong. I was honor bound to take that dratted Introductory Lectures and go confess that yes, Freud was brilliant. Rats.

5. Hey, Mr. Wasserman, there's a cultural reference for you. Get it?

Labels: Rants, reading

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Sunday, December 30, 2007

More stuff and stuff

Unfortunately, the blog title is only funny to about one person in the world besides me. Whatever. I got writing done today. Up to Chapter 5 in Xia. Interesting things going on. At the moment, I'm very happy with my progress.

Last night I finished the 2nd MaryJanice Davidson mermaid book. Swimming Without a Net. It was cute.

Tired. Off to bed.

Labels: reading, writing, Xia

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Saturday, December 29, 2007

Saturday Afternoon Post

I've been working all day, but in spurts. This precise moment is a non-spurt. Last night I watched several episodes of Buffy with my son instead of writing, so I have to make up the difference today. I'm halfway there.

In other news, it's been raining, or at least constantly drizzling. A couple of counties north had snow. But it's not that cold here, much to the darling child's dismay. The big fuzzy cat is asleep on my lap, which is nice.

Regarding my switcheroo to the Mac, I'm pleased to report further good progress. The keyboard that comes with the iMac is a thing of beauty. It's awesomely gorgeous. But if you type for several hours at a stretch, which as you may well imagine most writers do, it's a torture device. Ergonomic this keyboard is not. And, some of the keystroke combos for WordPerfect don't work on the iMac keyboard: Alt-F3 for example. So I pulled out my extra Ergo keyboard -- I'm pretty hard on keyboards and one time I spilled something on my keyboard and kablooie I was left high and dry until I could get another one. Ever since I've kept an extra keyboard around. So anyhoo, I plugged the Ergo keyboard into the iMac keyboard and voila. The Ergo keyboard works in Parallels exactly as you'd expect. I can reveal codes and everything. And, even though the iMac doesn't quite recognize the keyboard, in fact, it works just fine on the iMac even though the box said it was Windows only. I am back to being a pretty fast typist and my hands don't hurt.

Note to Patti: Thumbs up for Word Perfect in Parallels. I'm happy.

In reading news, I read a Romantic Suspense by a major author and was pretty disappointed. By the end, I couldn't remember if I actually finished it and I didn't even care. The heroine was supposed to be computer genius, but the author conflated programming ability with technical support skills and business sense, too. Not to mention, it was blatantly clear she didn't bother to run the geekish pages past an actual geek. It was pretty sad.

Sigh. Back to work. Mommy wants to buy a MacBook Pro. Or whatever Apple announces on January 14.

Labels: Mac vs. PC, reading, writing

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Thursday, December 27, 2007

Carolyn Wrote

My sister took my son to the movies and then out for burger tonight. I got to stay home and write. Over 1800 words. Chapter two had some interesting revelations for me, just as did chapter 1. I find that with a full time job and family etc, that I just don't often do much more than 1000 words a day. So that may not seem like so much, except at that rate, in 90 days I'll have 90,000 words. Have to, actually.

Then I ran into some trouble with zipping files. I forgot how much the file zipper program that comes with XP sucks. Awful! I'm not going to deal with WinZip again, though I like it a lot so I ended up downloading 7-zip which is a nice, free little program. Then I re-discovered the fact that the Mac OS assumes a file drag is a file MOVE, where as Windows does a Copy. Oops. So I had to mess around with getting my zip archives (one for the thumb drive, containing only the chapters and a few supporting documents) and a daily zip of everything -- I just add the stuff that's new, and save it with the date name. That way I have a daily archive of my work. And, as happened recently with Scandal, I did have to troll through my archives looking for a certain file in a known state. So, now I have two daily archives and one to transfer to the laptop. Whew! Plus I found a version of 7-zip that works on the Mac, so I think I'm good there.

Labels: writing, writing freaking writing, Xia

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Wednesday, December 26, 2007

Mostly Back to Work

Yeah, gotta go back to work tomorrow. Sigh.

Worked on Xia tonight. I have an interesting chapter 1 in which I learned a lot about my heroine. For example her name is Alexandrine, and she ran away from home shortly after her brother disappeared. She lived on the streets for a while. Who knew? I didn't. Not until I started writing. This sort of thing is why plotter strategies would never work for me. I could plot until I'm blue in the face, but it wouldn't work. Not until I started writing, and that would be completely different anyway.

Off to bed.

Labels: writing, Xia

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Tuesday, December 25, 2007

Another Eve For Me

I hope everyone who celebrated Christmas had a wonderful holiday full of good times, good friends and good food. Same for everyone else, too, for that matter. My day was really lovely, all three of the above were experienced.

I just now had the most interesting thought about Xia's story. Up to now, my heroine has been the adopted sister of Harsh, a character in My Wicked Enemy (Formerly Magellan's Witch). But, I just now thought, what if she's not? Interesting thought.

Tomorrow I start hard core on Xia's story. I have to write really fast. Sigh. Which makes this the Eve of Lottsa Writing for the next 4 months.

Labels: holidays, Xia

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Monday, December 24, 2007

Evening Thoughts

The presents are wrapped. So, my evening is free.

This morning I notebooked Xia and went off on this tangent and after 40 minutes of that, I thought, yeah, this is great for some other book. And then I had this flash of insight, or maybe just relief because the warm down period was starting, at any rate, I worked out the backstory for my heroine. Sigh of Relief.

Merry Christmas, everyone!

Labels: holidays, relaxing, Xia

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Sunday, December 23, 2007

Website, Buffy and Word Perfect

Trying to get through the holidays here at Jewel HQ. It's not always easy. Sigh.

The good news is that I've started implementing my redesigned website. I have the bulk of the new pages up, but not all of them, and I've not tested much. The blog will be dead last. But I got a lot more done today than I thought I would.

You-all may know that I don't watch TV. Therefore, I don't care much about the hardware. But I have my complete set of Buffy The Vampire Slayer DVD's which, for various reasons having to do with the Wii, the Tivo, the DVD and a viper's nest of color-coded cables I am unable to match color for color, I've had to watch on the iMac. Wow. The iMac display is just effin awesome. Tonight I re-watched the 1st two episodes with my son. We made popcorn, turned the lights off in my room and lay back on my bed to watch. It was fun. I think it's great, too, for him to see a woman kicking some vampire ass and making friends with nice people. I'm looking forward to seeing the entire series.

Lastly, I think I'm going to be OK with Word Perfect in Parallels. I figured out my keyboarding issues and I believe all will be well. I had one issue with my new ftp client for the mac, and the first set of files I uploaded went up with the wrong permissions. My webserver is on a linux machine so I had to manually change permissions. The hosting software didn't seem to allow batch changes, and I have no idea what my ssh shell login and pw is anymore so I had to do it one at a time. Pain! Besides, I know about 5 'nix commands and it's scary when you have to Google first, though I've done it in the past. So it's just as well. Then I found the place in the ftp client that sets the default permissions and since I know what those should be I had no further trouble. Oh, that was too long. Sorry. Today was a geeky day.

No more shopping for me. I was weak today and spent non-xmas-wad funds on presents. It was fun regardless. Tomorrow, wrapping! Ilooove wrapping presents.

I'll be starting in full blast on Xia on 12/26.

Merry Christmas Eve Eve everyone!

Labels: relaxing, Xia

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Friday, December 21, 2007

Sliding Back to Work

This morning at the gym I notebooked Xia's story. I have some ideas. And need to get cracking, too.

I'm still not sure about this Mac thing. NeoOffice, which I was thinking showed some promise isn't going to work. Today, I used it to read and comment in a very large document for a writing buddy. Things were going pretty well until I hit save and discovered that saving takes you back to the top of your document. Argh!!! If you're on page one, who cares? But if you're on page 243 and suddenly you're back on page one? Can you say completely stupid? Not to mention there were enormous latency issues. Toward the end I had to wait several seconds for the typing to show up on the screen. I bet I'm not the only writer who saves compulsively. To get booted back to page one after every save? No. I would have switched to WP, but Word Perfect can't read the neoOffice files and I didn't want to redo what I'd done already. I haven't used WP for anything big yet, but I'm bothered by the appearance of it. It's critical that I be able to type quickly and I have this awful suspicion that certain keystrokes are not available. Tomorrow I'll find out for sure.

I don't want to return the mac. I really, really don't, but I may have to.

Labels: Mac vs. PC, writing, Xia

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Wednesday, December 19, 2007

Ransom Seaborn

I finished Bill Deasy's POD book Ransom Seaborn this morning. It's a wonderful, emotional and affecting book that's beautifully written. There's some just absolutely breathtaking sentences. I teared up at the end, right there in the gym. Thank goodness I was all sweaty. I don't think anyone noticed. It's a story that's going to stay with me. Beautifully, beautifully done.

Labels: reading

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The Sad Tale of A Failed Novelist

Yesterday I read the Portfolio interview with Andrew Wiley. An absolutely fascinating interview. Alas, he also called commercial writers (ie, genre writers) failed novelists. Huh? Failed, I guess, because such writers are unable to write literary fiction. As if they secretly want to but can't and so must muck about with mystery and SciFi and Romance. Because it's not possible, is it, that there are writers who aren't interested in writing literary fiction. Interesting assumption there, Mr. Wylie. Or is it more an interesting revelation about Andrew Wylie? Some writers in the canon today were considered hacks in their day. I say thank God we're not all trying to write literary fiction. I wonder if Mr. Wylie would argue that a singer who isn't Pavarotti is a failed singer, because, after all, Pavarotti's voice will be heard for years after his death. Surely, it wouldn't be the case that there are commercially failed novelists whose work might actually be read through the ages, if not for a rather pernicious chauvinism? Consider Andrew Wylie Exhibit A.

There are more of us failed novelists than novelists because genius is actually rare. The way Pavarotti's voice is rare. It's not a matter of will. If I just wish hard enough will I write a book like Beloved? And if instead I write a story that entertains, why am I a failure? Just asking. When I was growing up, I read a lot of books by failed novelists, and those stories made me fall in love, and stay in love, with reading. They're why I read Toni Morrison and Michael Chabon and Virginia Wolff. There's not just room for us all, failures or not, but a need for all of us.

Just wanted to point that out.

Labels: Rants, reading, writing

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Tuesday, December 18, 2007

Reporting In

Just a couple of things, actually. So far Ransom Seaborn is brilliant. I don't expect that to change. Wow.

I started blocking out Xia's story. The due date is May 1. Yikes!! After Christmas I'll start writing.

Did I mention that the official title of Magellan's Witch is My Wicked Enemy? I've sent an email to my contest winner. But if I don't hear back from him by end of December, I'll select an alternate winner.

Going to bed.

Labels: Magellan's Witch, My Wicked Enemy, reading, Xia

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Monday, December 17, 2007

So I found the book

I went through my TBR and pulled out a POD book that I heard was really good. Ransom Seaborn by Bill Deasy. It starts with a sort of author's note:

     The shower water felt like tiny pebbles on my skin. It had been days, maybe even a week. I put on fresh jeans and a T-shirt, and set up shop at this worn, nicked, underused desk. PowerBook, 20 ounce Styrofoam coffee cup, ashtray, cigarettes-- all the essentials.

     It's raining outside, a fine mist. I hear it just barely against the window-- imaginary childhood horses rushing toward me from beyond the pale. I'm trying to think too much about what I'm writing...what I'm doing here. I guess I have a story to tell you.


     Here goes nothing.

Wow. I read the first page of the story and it's just as fine as that.

Yes, I found the book to read next.

There's nothing like starting to read and realizing it's brilliant. I'll report back and let you know if it stays that way. How could it not?

Labels: reading

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Whoosh! That's the sound of me getting behind

Here I am vacating and I feel like I'm getting behind. Is that even possible? I finished Brockmann's All Through The Night and started E. George's book but I think it's too dark and depressing for me right now. I'll probably pick it up again later. So now I'm going to go through the TBR and start looking for what I do feel like.

I started notebooking Xia's story today. Got some cool ideas. I need to go to bed now because I was up too late last night.

Labels: relaxing, Xia

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Sunday, December 16, 2007

It's time

Yeah. It's time to start working on Xia. Just some notebooking to get things down and start zeroing in on the story and its characters. I can't wait.

Labels: Xia

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Shopping Done!

Today I went out with my xmas money and got all my shopping done. I despise shopping, but I did OK. I bought a cookie press and made cool cookies tonight. They came out great!


In other news I think I've decided not to marry Vishous. Instead, I'm going to marry James Blunt. Wonder if he likes older women? In other silly news, I'm going to buy a lottery ticket tomorrow.

I'm reading Brockmann's All Through the Night. Enjoyable. Next up, What Happened After He Shot her.

Now I'm going to go work on the website.

Xia continues to percolate. I don't know how long I can relax with him knocking about in my head.

Labels: relaxing, Xia

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Saturday, December 15, 2007

Relaxing is a State of Mind

Today is my mother's 80th birthday. Despite some forbidding omens, a wonderful time was had by all. All her children and grandchildren were there along with the spouses. Good friends came and we sat around and talked and told stories and ate good food. Every now and then I'd think Oh, geez, I need to get some work done... and then I'd remember that I didn't, and I'd relax. It was nice. And, everyone brought presents for her that were perfect and appreciated by all. Very nice.

Today I finished reading Jodi Picault's Plain Truth which was pretty good. Next is Elizabeth George's What happened After He Shot her but I'm itching for a really good romance. I have Brockmann's recent novella, maybe I'll pick that up first.

Adjustment to the Mac world continues. I had to find an html editor that works. My first choice, Amaya, was quickly abandoned because I couldn't figure out how to make it reveal source code. The help file didn't make sense: Check the line at the bottom but the only thing I could find was a toggle between text and XML neither of which showed me anything but the graphic view and I need to chop up the pages for the server side includes. So, forget that. I downloaded a trial of BBedit and got it to show me source code no problem (once I remembered where to look -- I'm still getting used to the Mac interface). I looked around a little for Word for the Mac. Ouch. Not cheap. But I have to have a professional word processor.

Tomorrow I have to do some Christmas Shopping. We don't have a tree up yet so it doesn't feel real. But shopping time is running out. Mostly stuff for the kids, of course. I've been saving all year and have about $700 to spend because every pay day I take all the cash out of my wallet and put it away for Christmas. It adds up.

Last night I dreamed about Xia. My bad boy for the next book. And while I was reading Plain Truth I had some flashes about interesting psychological states for my hero and heroine. I already knew that he hasn't had sex for a really long time -- not intercourse that he wanted to have. I may start working on Xia just because the ideas are there insistently burbling.

Labels: relaxing, Xia

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Friday, December 14, 2007

Me and Apple

The switcheroo continues. I'd be in happy heaven with this iMac except for one leetle thing... A decent word processing program. I have NeoOffice, which is Open Office for the Mac. And this other program, a demo, called Nisus Writer Pro. Think of that last program name as being highly ironic. Snort snuffle snark Um. I don't think any real writers (by which I mean writers who must turn in a properly formatted and paginated MS to a traditional publisher) use this program. NeoOffice has some promise. But I have a low tolerance for bad help files. I'll probably play with it some more. The thing is, I got comfortable with WordPerfect which, I still maintain, is a superior program. I had everything set up to do exactly what I needed with all the shortcuts I needed. The point being that WP is, in fact, able to do everything: automatically number my pages and chapters. Easily set the line spacing to something appropriate but non-standard (that is, not 2 or 1.5) among many other things.

Yeah, I understand that I need to invest some time in whatever program I end up using, but to be honest, despite my being On Vacation I don't have much time to invest. I have to get cracking on Xia's story damn soon. I'll have to play a bit more with Parallels, but it's not quite the same as a native program. But I'll play some more this weekend.

My mom turns 80 tomorrow and we're having a party for her. And by the way, she in no way acts or looks 80 - I should be so lucky myself when the time comes -- I hope. I have to get drinks and a present for her tomorrow morning. Here's a life tip: when people ask you what you'd like for your birthday or some holiday or whatever, please, for the love of dog! do not say Oh, I don't want anything... because that just makes the asker feel bad and useless. And possibly irritated. Particularly if you sigh and say this in such a way as to imply that the asker has not guessed what is desired and/or you just sound like you want to be a martyr to your own personal space. Sigh Not that my mother has ever done that. I'm just saying, you know, don't do that.

In other news, I finished The Reincarnationist and it was pretty good. I felt, in some odd way, that at times it lacked a certain emotional depth. But it was still a good story. Then I started Chabon's The Yiddish Policeman's Union only to discover that it is written in the present tense. For me, the present tense is like fingernails down a chalkboard. I can't read it. So instead I'm reading Jodi Picault's Plain and so far it's really quite good.

Oh, one thing about The Reincarnationist that got me was a scene in which a character is able to easily and without any effort at all lower the bodice of an Edwardian gown and expose the woman's bare breasts. Um, no. Somebody didn't research.

Labels: reading, relaxing

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Thursday, December 13, 2007

Vacating the Premises

Ok, not really. But I am vacating as in not writing, freaking writing. I finished Michael Sedgwick's My Swordhand is Singing. I have to agree with I forget who said it, but that's got to be one of the greatest book titles ever. It's only 200 pages, I whipped through it in a day and read the ending of the creepiest chapter to my son. Now I'm reading M.J. Rose's The Reincarnationist. I'm enjoying it.

Also, I have an iMac. The switcheroo is kind of a long involved story, but we'll see how I adjust. I've only been using it for 15 minutes and I think I love it already. Anyway. I still have to go to work tomorrow so I'm off to bed.

Labels: reading

(2) comments

Wednesday, December 12, 2007

Well, now what?

Now that Scandal is done and off to editor-land, I don't know what to do with myself. OK, I have a few ideas:

• Christmas shopping


• Update my website


• Reading




1. My Sword Hand is Singing (will finish tonight, awesome so far)


2. The Reincarnationist by MJ Rose


3. Plain Truth, by Jodi Picault


4. A bunch of Lee Child


5. The Yiddish Policeman's Union, Michael Chabon


6. The Immortals series (I've got them all, I hope I can find them!)


7. What Came Before he Shot her, Elizabeth George


8. And lots more




• Sleeping


• Spending time with my family

But first I have to calm down. I'm totally still hyped up.

In two weeks, on to my bad boy Xia.

Labels: reading, relaxing, Scandal

(2) comments

Tuesday, December 11, 2007

YesSSSSS!!

Photo by
Amodiovalerio Verde

Scandal is done. Since I cried at several chapters, I'm happy.

Labels: editing, Scandal

(3) comments

Monday, December 10, 2007

Down to the Wire

Today I hit 95,066 words so I'm golden tonight. I'm up to chapter 23 in the final read through. I fixed my two trouble spots and it rocks completely. Put a bit more on the line in a couple chapters tonight. Tomorrow, I'm pushing on.

Tonight, I'm going to bed.

I've been listening to a lot of James Blunt as I finish up. I really love the emotion of his music. Plus sometimes he uses a bad word or two and it's really kind of nice knowing the work wasn't sanitized for consumption. I have three of his CD's now and when I have the money I'll be on a quest for everything else he's done. I can sing along to the music and get myself in a good mood for writing. Which is pretty much the whole point. Yet another artist discovered from MySpace. But not from his profile. From someone else's profile music. So, let's see. Someone has a song of his playing on their profile. Carolyn hears it, and now owns three of his CD's plus an Amazon download of a single he did on some other album. So, why do artists delete their songs from MySpace profiles?

What else? Killer headache. But I can't get sick so I won't. That's it. At my son's soccer practice the temp was 53 with about an hour to go and by the end it was 44. Yeah, people who live with real weather are wondering why I'm complaining about a heat wave but for here, that's just darned cold. I was thinking about putting on my socks.

OK, off to bed.

Labels: editing, Scandal, writing freaking writing

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Sunday, December 09, 2007

Still working...

I fell asleep this afternoon. I feel a lot better for the nap, but it kinda put a crimp in the reading. I went grocery shopping early today so as to get it out of the way and have my afternoon clear, but a bunch of stuff kept coming up. I washed hundreds (and I do mean hundreds) of box elder beetles off the outside of the sliding glass door in my room. After that murderous spree, I admitted I had a couple of rough patches to fix in Scandal and then went and fixed them. I hope. And no I was NOT procrastinating or anything like that. Sheesh! Like I'd ever do that. I just didn't want to stare at all those bugs any more. I didn't. Would you? I wish the peacocks were still here. They ate a lot of box elder beetles.

I had to make two batches of cookies tonight, one for the Darling Child and his lunches for the week, the other for the Cookie Parade at work. Not, as I was hoping, an event where you dress up as your favorite cookie, but one where you bring them to work for every one to enjoy. Can you say good bye diet? I can. Rats.

Anyway, I'm going to read more and hope I find out that I've fixed the problem chapters.

Labels: Ack, editing, writing freaking writing

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Saturday, December 08, 2007

Making Progress!

Today I got through all my action items for Scandal. Yay! By the time I was ready to print out the MS for a final read through I was up to 94K. I'm doing the read through now, and it's going pretty well so far. Nothing major. So far.

I'm posting early because I promised my son months ago that we'd see the Golden Compass when it came out. The movie's out now. We're just waiting for my sister to get here, since she gets off early enough on Saturdays that she can come with us. Then we're off to the movie.

At the moment, I'm really tired. Don't know why but I am.

Labels: editing, polishing, Scandal

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Friday, December 07, 2007

Closing in

I think I'm just about done with Scandal. No fork quite yet, but I finished having it read to me. I have a list of action items, going through the MS for phrases I think I've repeated or overused, some continuity etc. There's only 8 things on the list. I'll get through that in the mornning, then print it off and start reading.

At the gym in the AM, I've started blocking out the next paranormal. That's been fun. Sort of.

OK, off to sleep.

Labels: editing, Scandal, writing freaking writing

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Wednesday, December 05, 2007

Catching up

Looks like my (very) brief post from yesterday got munched. Oh. Well. It went like this: Working on Scandal. Back to it.

That is still a true statement. I'm having it read back to me. Catching a lot of pesky typos and fixing a lot of continuity stuff. I have this habit of (need to?) moving stuff around, and then I forget where things are and either don't delete or don't conform enough to the new (for now) home. There's a lot of that in this one. To quote my favorite TV show ever (::Adrian Paul::) Highlander: There can be only one. Meaning, typically, your characters can only meet for the first time once, not once in each of 5 to 6 chapters. Sheesh. Looks bad, you know? So I'm fixing that.

The best part is that little things are getting settled and elicited. Things that make a story resonate. Which is better than if it sucks. Back to work.

Labels: editing, Scandal, writing

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Tuesday, December 04, 2007

keeping up

Working on finishing up Scandal. That's pretty much it. Back to it.

Labels: Scandal

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Sunday, December 02, 2007

No Drama, Please.

You know, I wish there was a button somewhere that said No Drama Here. If there were, I'd have pushed it several times today. I don't have time for drama. How the hell can I finish a book with all this freaking drama exploding around me?

Deep breath, Carolyn

I'm ignoring it.

My son's brain is going to melt from all the TV he's watching. No drama from him at least.

Labels: No Drama Here, Scandal, writing

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Saturday, December 01, 2007

Typing Typing Typing

Keep those doggies typing
Raw Nerves!
Fix it up
Cut the crap
Add some in
Edit more!
Raw Nerves!


That's me. Working on Scandal. I'm writing a new chapter right now. But I finally got to a spot where I wasn't fixing the crap out of, er, crap and was just fixing typos and polishing, which was SUCH a relief. Then I got to a spot where I realized I needed a new chapter, just to add a certain element of suspense that was missing. But I thought of a good one and after this post I'll be back to it.

What else? In all of November, I think we had exactly 1 day of rain. It's cold (for here) and when I went out this morning to snap some pics, I had to wear shoes instead of my sandals. Geez! My cat Jake finally got tired of trying to push me off my chair and is now back to sleeping on the printer.

Random Pics from this morning:

The first Snowbells of the Winter

Leaves Frozen In the Birdbath

Labels: editing, Scandal, writing freaking writing

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