I was considering doing a post called “When bad things happen to good characters” today, but I just got back from the YMCA, where I spent two hours supervising my kids swimming, and something struck me.

As I sat on a rather hard plastic bench admiring my children’s cannonballs and semi-handstands, a young man with very limited mobility was wheeled in by a young woman. After a bit of orchestration, she and another woman lifted him from his wheelchair into the water, saying, “Are you ready to move a little bit?”

The look of delight on the young man’s face when they lowered him into the water was a marvelous thing.

I sometimes overlook what a great gift it is simply to be able to go to the kitchen and get a glass of water, or fold a load of laundry, or cook dinner. Or step outside and let the wind blow through my hair while I stroll the neighborhood. It’s moments like the one I experienced this afternoon that remind me of that.

So as I watched the kids, my attention kept drifting to the young man, cradled in a kind woman’s arms, being swirled around the pool, weightless. Moving in ways that are usually denied to him. And I’ll tell you, his joy was contagious.

He also — in his own way — reminded me of two things: one, we are very, very fortunate just to be here, and can find joy no matter what obstacles life throws our way. And two, little things can really make a difference in others’ lives — as the assistance of the two women today did.

Now, having waxed philosophical for a few minutes, I’m off to do a load of towels — and spend a few moments being grateful that I can. I’ll write the post I had in mind this morning later on this week.

I hope you are all having a wonderful day!

What a weekend. A mega-grocery shop followed by moving furniture in San Antonio yesterday, a trip to Temple today… and I’ve just now managed to find my living room floor. As you can imagine, it has not been a particularly word-rich weekend, at least as far as my manuscript is concerned.

Am taking a two minute break while dinner (Scarborough Faire chicken, which smells fabulous and involves — not surprisingly — parsley, sage, rosemary and thyme) finishes up.

I am going to attempt to get up at 6:45 tomorrow to lock myself in my office and write before the kids get up. But I also have to reread the ms I just edited, to see if I need to do more.

Am also hoping to get to the gym at some point, but since I think the Y is closed (grr) I may be reduced to doing jumping jacks while watching Sex in the City in my TV room. Tomorrow night, when the kids are asleep, of course. I’d get another video, but the library will also be closed. Double grrr.

I was thinking about this; I think I’m unusual for a writer in that I have a bit of an extroverted streak. (Although the pendulum swings to the other end of the spectrum, as well, particularly after a busy, people-intense weekend like the one I’ve just gone through.) Where do all of you fall on the spectrum?

P.S. For those of you who asked for the book map, I realized just yesterday that it’s mystery-centered. It is easy to adapt for other kinds of books, though — tune in later this week, and I’ll tell you how. I’d do it now, but the timer’s going off…

K

I do not understand dreams. I just woke up from one in which we lived in a noisy apartment at a huge 410 interchange in San Antonio. And in which we had bought tickets to go to Venice for a week in March, and (incomprehensibly, but that’s how dreams are, I guess) forgotten about them.

The only thing I can figure is that we’re supposed to help my parents move some furniture to San Antonio today, and I read Candy Calvert’s blog entry about crying during an unexpected second honeymoon in Venice.

Dreams are such strange things, aren’t they?

Okay.

So I know I started this whole tracking words, etc. thing a couple of weeks ago, and then had to backpedal this week while I went back to juice up a manuscript. (I have written 5,000 words of fiction — primarily romantic in nature — this week, in case you were missing the counts. I’m hoping I did what I set out to do, but may have to go back and address it a third time. Fingers crossed that that is not the case.)

Anyway, assuming that my rewrite is in fact done for now, I will be back on track on Monday. Well, Tuesday, really, thanks to President’s Day. (Aaargh. Stupid school schedules.) On my new book. Which is languishing at around 13,000 words, and which I was hoping would be at least 20K long by now.

But that’s not what I wanted to talk about today.

What I really want to address is the two hats an author wears. Or at least might consider trying to wear if she’s feeling stuck. (See, I told you there was a connection!)

I had lunch with a fellow author just a few minutes ago — she’s written mainly SF and fantasy, but got an idea for a mystery recently, and wanted to talk with me about how to go about making it happen. She’s got great ideas, as it turns out, with lots of twists and turns and interesting characters — but when she pulled out the document I’d sent her — ten blank pages punctuated only by chapter headings — I remembered suddenly how daunting the whole concept of writing a book can be. Blank page syndrome. Only instead of filling one, you’re supposed to fill about 300.

So I told her what I tell anybody who asks, and even occasionally people who don’t. (I know I’ve talked about this before, but if you’re a writer who suffers occasional writer’s block, it’s really important, so bear with me.)

Whenever I come up against the “Oh my God I have no idea what to write” wall — which happens to all of us — I step back from what I’m working on and split my writer self into two halves. Or two hats, as the case may be: the planner, and the scene-writer. The planner comes up with the scenes that need to happen — enough scenes, hopefully, to fill a book. Then she lays them out for the scene-writer, as in “These three things need to happen in chapter one.”

The scene-writer, on a given day, looks at the assignment the planner has set for her, sits down, and says, “All I have to do today is get this person from point A to point B and have her car blow up when she leaves the parking lot.” Or something (hopefully) equally interesting.

The scene-writer doesn’t have to worry about what happens in chapter 24, or even five pages down the line from what she’s writing. She just needs to finish her assignment for the day. And if something interesting happens during the writing of that assignment? She pitches it back to the planner, who can incorporate it into the whole plan and adjust future assignments to compensate.

Now, some people are ‘pantsters’ — seat-of-the-pants writers. And I am becoming more of one as time goes on. But when I’m feeling stuck, I just go right back to my planner/scene-writer split until things get going again. Because even if I write the worst scene ever written, at least I’ve got something to work with. If I throw in the towel and go to the movies, I’ll have nothing to dissect, and I’ll have a stomach-ache from all the Milk Duds I ate to distract myself from the fact that I’m not writing. Or maybe that’s just me.

I have a document I use in my classes called a ‘book map,’ which helps my personal planner put things together. If you’re interested in having a copy, feel free to e-mail me ([email protected]) and I’ll forward it to you.

For now, though, I’m off to exercise and then pick up my kiddo. I hope everyone is doing well and has exciting weekend plans. I don’t, unfortunately; my planner is limited to scenes lately, alas. But who knows? Maybe someone will whisk me off to Bermuda.

I’ll keep you posted…

And by the way, how’s YOUR writing going? Was it a good week? A great week? A Milk Dud week? Inquiring minds want to know.

So it’s a measure of how much I like my friend Melanie that when she called this morning to ask if I wanted to go walk, I exchanged my jeans and sweater for sweatpants, a pair of my husband’s long underwear (I wish I was kidding) and a ski jacket. Because the wind chill was 22, which is unheard of in Austin. On the plus side, the conversation was refreshingly acerbic — like I said, I wouldn’t brave sub-freezing weather for just anyone — and it was a delightful, sunny morning. Even if my long underwear did keep falling down.

But as much as I like tromping around the lake with a cold nose, the highlight of the morning came later, when we went to Sweetish Hill cafe for chocolate croissants, strudel, and coffee. Yum. (Perhaps coincidentally, it has not been a particularly productive morning on the book front.)

So we’re sitting there, eating highly caloric foods and exchanging parenting horror stories, when I realize that my handy-dandy camera is right there in my pocket and that I have barely used it. So I say, “I should take a picture of you and post it on my blog.”
Melanie looks at me and says, “You’re kidding me, right?”
But no, I wasn’t, and I am so pleased that I actually managed to figure out the camera enough to take a picture AND download it to my computer that here it is. Besides, Melanie is photogenic, and more people should see her. I am sad to report, however, that she made me promise NOT to relate the little incident that happened at a local brew pub. The one that involved the leprechauns and the Goldschlager shots. So in deference to our friendship, I won’t. Not today, anyway.

In any case, it seemed appropriate to start the day with strudel, as my topic du jour was going to be food and books. In fact, I still plan to write about that, although I’d much rather write about the leprechauns; but since it’s my Cozy Chicks day, I think I’ll post it over there later on. In the meantime, here’s a picture of the tulip bouquet I found on my kitchen table last night.

Which explains where the bag of petals my daughter gave me as a valentine came from.

Let’s hear it for minimalist floral arrangements!

Off to write again… I’ll be back on Cozy Chicks this afternoon…

K

Just a quick post… remember Leslie the transvestite from one or two posts ago?

I just found out he has his own entry on Wikipedia.

Once again, it boggles the mind.

Okay, back to the werewolves.

I’m sitting at the Westbank Community Library, which is conveniently located three blocks from my house, and which I fund almost singlehandedly with my library fines, in a procrastinatory mood. (I am launching a campaign to make that a word, by the way.) Maybe it’s because of the delicious Mexi-Cobb salad I just ate at Chuy’s with my husband. Followed by half his Chuychanga (yum) and part of a margarita. Mmmm…

Anyway, in deference to my mood, instead of writing a sexually charged scene about werewolves, I’m thinking about the Dear Abby column I read this morning.

Today’s standout was a letter from “Needs Therapy in Texas” (which, I can assure you, is most definitely the case). “Needs Therapy” has evidently been having a number of disagreements with her lover, and feels couples counseling would help “make the relationship work.” The only hitch? Her lover keeps insisting that they see the same marriage counselor that he is currently seeing… WITH HIS WIFE.

Yes, that’s right. His WIFE. I can hear the phone conversation now: “Honey, I’ll be a few hours late; my mistress and I are going to couples therapy. Don’t wait up, because we’ve also got a hotel room reserved. I’ll tell the doctor ‘hi’ for you. And sorry about the mix-up on those roses I sent… I’ll try to get the names right next time.”

Mind boggling, I tell you.

At any rate, despite my ruminations on other people’s warped relationships, I’m almost two-thirds of the way through my manuscript revision, and hope to have it done this week. Oh — and in case you were wondering, I did manage to get my camera to work. Which is why I have a new picture. (Which my daughter still insists bears no resemblance to me. Maybe I’ll just post a picture of Chewbacca instead.)

Blogwise, going forward, I will be attempting to liven things up with pictures of my own camera. Well, maybe not of my camera, but from my camera. I am not, however, a crack photographer, so consider yourselves warned. (Then again, based on those last few sentences, perhaps I’m not quite a crack writer, either, so bad photography may make no difference whatsoever to overall post quality.)

Anybody got any exciting V-Day plans? So I can live vicariously through you? (The highlight of tonight’s planned festivities involves meatloaf. Maybe, if I’m feeling creative, I’ll make it heart-shaped and cover it in ketchup.)

Back to the romantic werewolf grindstone…

K

I just got back from my revise-a-thon (which is still in progress); I’ve made it through the first third of the manuscript and have added about 2,000 words that I’m very, very happy with. And I even got to include Leslie, Austin’s transvestite mascot. (He favors thongs, falsies, and a full beard. He can pull it off, though — he’s got terrific legs. I can’t wait to see what he’s wearing for Valentine’s Day!)

Anyway, last night after my bath and cold compresses (see possum incident, below), I opened up Jitterbug Perfume (what a title!), a Tom Robbins tome that I bought yesterday and haven’t read in about ten years. (It beat out the haunted castles, the dark fire something or other book, and the stack of travel essays.) And although the dialogue is not quite as sparkling as it seemed in my younger days, the opening is just as remarkable as I remember. Here it is:

TODAY’S SPECIAL

“The beet is the most intense of vegetables. The radish, admittedly, is more feverish, but the fire of the radish is a cold fire, the fire of discontent not of passion. Tomatoes are lusty enough, yet there runs through tomatoes an undercurrent of frivolity. Beets are deadly serious.”

Ha!

Honestly, though. I’ve never thought of a tomato as frivolous before. Or a beet as serious, come to think of it. So thank you, Tom Robbins, for writing such weird and vegetable-y prose.

I am off now to return e-mails and pay my electric bill. And to exercise.

Ta for now, then… I hope your day is as zesty and interesting as Tom Robbins’ crisper drawer!

I just dumped a bowl of broccoli bits, mango peels, and tea bags onto a possum.

Which I figured out when the compost pile looked back at me with beady little eyes.

Will now retire to bath followed by cool compresses to reduce heart rate from high 200s.

So everyone’s back at school now. Hooray!

Of course, I celebrated by going to my traditional coffee haunt, where I got my usual (the cheapest thing on the menu — tall drip) and deposited myself in my favorite brown chair.

And read through the entire Wolf 1 manuscript, marking the areas I want to revise. (My word count today, if there is any, will be on the first manuscript; this week is dedicated to revisions. Unless I need a change of pace.)

Then I wandered next door to rearrange books to my advantage. As I was relocating a small stack of Murder on the Rocks books from a table in the back to the mystery bookshelf, I came across a woman reading the back of Dead and Berried. And of course, I said, delightedly, “That’s my book!”

She was more than a little bit startled, and I think prepared to point out that there were six copies on the shelf, and that I was welcome to any one of them. I hurried to explain that the book didn’t actually belong to me, it’s just that I wrote it. As it turned out, her name was Amelia, and she was very nice. It all ended with me signing a copy of Murder on the Rocks for her. And buying three books to take home, including Jitterbug Perfume (which is what I went in for), Haunted Castles of England and Ireland, and a book called Dark Fire (I think) that takes place in England in the 1500s. Where exactly I’m going to put these books, I have no idea. I should not be allowed in bookstores; I’m a menace.

On a totally unrelated note, evidently it was Prison Awareness Sunday at the Austin American-Statesman; I read a fascinating article about a man who spent thirty years in jail (for a crime he didn’t commit, incidentally) making pralines out of purloined butter and sugar packets. Evidently it requires burning thirty (thirty!) rolls of toilet paper, and you have to do it over a toilet so you can flush the evidence if a guard walks by and catches you with sticky fingers. So to speak. So if you have a yen for pralines, he sells them online. He no longer cooks over an open toilet, in case that was a concern for you, and now uses natural gas rather than flaming toilet paper as a fuel source.

And to think that with two convection ovens, a high-output gas stove, and a refrigerator bulging at the seams, I have difficulty getting dinner on the table!

I’ll check back later with word count. I hope. How’s everyone else today?