I've been underground for nearly four weeks because I suddenly decided to write my novel, Secret Rites of the Goddess in first person. If I'd known the work it would end up being I may not have even begun, but there it is. 120 hours later I'm doing the final check-through. And then I want to check out. Actually, I had this goal to revise two more novels this summer . . . silly me.

So the rewrite starts out innocently enough . . . I single space, paginate like a *real* book and make tons of changes along with all the *Jayden's*' to *I* and *hers* and *she's* to *me*. I also cut about 10 pages in extraneous verbage. I'm thinking, hey, this is pretty good. I like the voice better, I'm into the character more. And it only took me a week.

But another voice nags. "Go through it one more time. "
I obey.

I print out a hard copy this time instead of rewriting directly on my computer screen. I use bigger margins and bigger spaces so I can see and make corrections easier. I'm shocked as I'm reading and marking. My pages end up BLOODY! I mean, my red pencil is spilling its guts!

I rewrite the prose even more and I end up cutting 40 more pages of just plain verbage. Yes, 40! I guess I talk more on the page than I do in real life - although my three sons would majorly disagree. So in the end I've cut 10,000 words. It's now 80,000 words. I've put all the changes in and this round takes me 2.5 weeks of 8 hour days.

I'm burned out and couldn't face it Monday morning so I took a break and read two books yesterday and ran errands and took my son to the dentist. I needed that. Um, the books, not the dentist. The books helped me get out of *my* head and help me see the world again. I'm ready to finish today and mail this to a very patient, but highly interested agent.

Tomorrow . . . an interesting observation about repeated words.

8 Facts about me

I've been tagged by Barb O'Connor.

1. My favorite book growing up was The Little White Horse by Elizabeth Goudge, but I don't particularly like horses. Good thing the book isn't really about horses!

2. I drink only fat-free milk with my pan of brownies. Ahem - I know they cancel each other out.

3. I wanted three daughers after having my three sons, but it never happened.

4. I have a golden Egyptian Goddess Selket sitting above my desk.

5. I know how to speak a little Bulgarian. Zdrasti!

6. I'm a part-time Mary Kay Beauty Consultant - but I don't do *parties* at all.

7. I've never been a morning person, but I get up at 5 a.m. to teach a class at church for teenagers.

8. My husband proposed to me with a plate of fortune cookies. Inside the last one was the saying: "Confucious say: Will you marry me?" He baked them himself.

Now for the fun part - I get to tag 8 other people!

Carrie Jones
Lauren Barnholdt
Melissa Wyatt
Alexandra Flinn
Janette Rallison
Mette Ivie Harrison
Mary Pearson
Julie Prince
Crissa Chappell

You're it!

Pioneer Woman!

Whew, boy! I'm leaving at 6 a.m. tomorrow morning for a wilderness pioneer re-enactment trek. Am I a sucker for punishment - or just blessed with the adventurous spirit as my pioneer forebears? Think I'll tell myself it's the latter.

We're going with a group of about 150 including the teenagers from church, pulling handcarts, and wearing 1850's dress. Thirty miles on foot with only a 5 gallon bucket with all our stuff. Yep, that's all under and outer and sleeping clothing, toiletries, jacket, rain poncho, flashlight, chapstick, sunscreen, first aid, T.P., towel, wet wipes, sunglasses, the works - in 1 five gallon bucket. With a lid, you've got an instant stool for the campfire. Another bag holds bedding, blanket, pillow.

We've been getting tons of rain this month which is really unusual so I'm praying for sunshine. As long as I'm praying I'll ask for NO 95 degree weather either.

I'll let you know if I survive the trip. I'm going as Ann Roberts Griffiths, my ancestor who left Wales in 1843 as a newlywed of 13 days with her husband Joseph and traveled from Liverpool all the way to New Orleans and then up the Mississippi to Illinois. From there she traveled 1300 miles across the western prairies to a new home.

I can't even imagine doing that NOW, let alone THEN. She's my hero. And we have practically the same name. My middle name is Anne and my maiden name is Griffiths so direct descendant here.

So back to packing. I just emailed three chapters and brand new detailed synopsis (written this weekend) off to another agent who requested my novel, Secret Rites of the Goddess. She even called my idea *brilliant* - so I'm just a teensy, weensy bit psyched!

Enchanted Fridays – Journey of a Novelist

I’m thrilled to interview one of the best YA authors out there and someone I've learned a lot from - Alex Flinn!

We're talking about DIVA today, but don't forget that Alex's next book BEASTLY comes out in October from HarperTeen, and sounds absolutely delicious!

KIMBERLEY: What was the seed for DIVA? What led you to write a novel about Caitlin after your book, BREATHING UNDERWATER?

ALEXANDRA: I got a lot of requests for a sequel to BU, and I really had no idea what I would possibly write about. "Nothing interesting is ever going to happen to Nick again," I explained to the kids who e-mailed, and I firmly believed that to be true.

A few people, not all girls, asked for a book about Caitlin, and I toyed with the idea of writing a book about her, after the book, going to performing arts school, because I had gone to a program like that my last two years of high school.

Then, I did a school visit where I was discussing abusive relationships with several girls who had been in them. "Why," I asked, "are so many girls in this school in abusive relationships." One girl replied, "It's a small school. If you broke up with your boyfriend, there'd be no one to date."

I thought that was sad that these girls thought they had so little going on in their lives, that they needed a boyfriend so badly that they'd accept one who hit them. And that sort of provided the spark of the idea for DIVA, to write a book about a girl pursuing her dreams and realizing that those dreams did not necessarily need to include a boy.

The opera part came a little bit from the fact that Caitlin was a singer in the first book and a lot from the fact that I like opera, and I think it is misunderstood by most young people (including my generation). People think opera is boring, but it actually has enough blood, guts, cheating spouses, and undying love to fill a season of Desperate Housewives and several Manga books. I used the opera, La Traviata, among others, as a parallel to Caitlin's and her mother's lives. La Traviata has been used in several modern movies, including Pretty Woman and Moulin Rouge, so I thought teens would get it.
KIMBERLEY: How much of Caitlin’s journey toward singing opera, performance arts school, auditions, and teachers experiences mirror your own?

ALEXANDRA: A lot of the little things that happened to Caitlin happened to me or my friends. The bigger things didn't. Caitlin's parents are not my parents, and I never knew a boy like Nick. Caitlin's best friend, Gigi, is an entirely fictional character. The only characters who were loosely based upon real people were Caitlin's friend, Sean, and some of the teachers (Rowena, for example, is sort of a hybrid of two of the three voice teachers with whom I studied). But the little day-to-day things that happened to her (including her terror that she would be asked to dance on the side of the stage) were taken from my own life. I think writing an autobiographical book would be very challenging, but making the book about Caitlin gave me the opportunity to take the story away from my own and just choose bits and pieces I liked about what happened in real life.

KIMBERLEY: Are Caitlin’s favorite operas and arias your favorites? If someone has never been to the opera before is there one that you would recommend they see first?

ALEXANDRA: La Traviata is a favorite of mine. Some of my other favorites are more complicated to explain within the context of a book, like The Tales of Hoffman, or they are not for Caitlin's voice part, like Cavelleria Rusticana, so I didn't include them. The first opera I ever saw live was Turandot, which is an excellent choice because it has a compelling plot, unlike some of Puccini's other opera's, which focus more on beautiful music. Probably the "chestnuts," by which I mean the popular operas which are performed constantly, are the best ones for a beginner. These include Carmen, Madama Butterfly, Pagliacci, La Boheme, and Rigoletto.

KIMBERLEY: One of the most emotionally powerful scenes in DIVA, to me, is on pages 90-94 when Caitlin runs into her old boyfriend Nick, an abusive boy that she finally found the courage to leave. Her feelings toward him are so real. On one level, Caitlin still feels in love with him and yet she keeps telling herself that she shouldn’t have these feelings and tries to remind herself of how badly he treated her. Unfortunately, the good memories of Nick are hard to shake and she’s torn and a bit miserable. The doubts and insecurities she expresses in her online journal ring very true. I think many girls and women can relate to those feelings. We’ve all had them at one time or another when we’ve dated boys/men who weren’t good for us, whether they were actually abusive or not. Were those scenes difficult to write?

ALEXANDRA: I volunteered at a battered women's shelter and worked at the State Attorney's Office with domestic violence cases, before I became an author. After I became an author, I talked about dating violence with a lot of teens at school visits. At most schools, there are at least one or two girls who tell me about their abusive relationships. A lot of the stuff Caitlin puts in her journal that day is stuff I talk about with kids at school visits -- the whole question of "Why doesn't she leave him?" I know well why girls don't leave, but I hope my books help them to consider why they should.

KIMBERLEY: The most surprising or unexpected thing that’s happened to you since publishing your novels.

ALEXANDRA: It's really surprising to me that kids read my books in school. When I was in school, we mostly read stuff like Charles Dickens or, if we were really lucky, George Orwell, but never anything more modern than that. It never occurred to me that anyone would assign Breathing Underwater or Fade to Black. I think the topics appeal to teachers, and the real-life situations appeal to students.

KIMBERLEY: What are you working on now?

ALEXANDRA: My upcoming novel, Beastly, comes out in October. It's a modern, urban version of Beauty and the Beast.

KIMBERLEY: Share with us your secret "Diva" wish!

ALEXANDRA: My editor always talks about "What will readers take away from the book?" So my wish is that girls who read the book because it has a pink cover, might still take something away from it, whether it is insight into their own relationships with boys or their mothers, or maybe a little interest in the performing arts.

A big THANK YOU to Alex for stopping by and giving us a peek into her life and inspiration. Applause, applause!!!

Go hang at her Live Journal: alixwrites.livejournal.com and her web site www.alexflinn.com!

Yay for me!

I did it - I typed "The End" five minutes ago!!!

I'm WIP-ped. Sigh. Why do I always feel a bit of a let-down at the end of a first draft? I usually cry during the last few pages, but I didn't for this novel. Maybe because the phone kept ringing all day! It's hard to ignore your kids though - especially when they've got the car. Maybe it's also because I've been trying to get to the end for so long I was just too frustrated to *feel* anything. There have been so many interruptions. Like yesterday I had to stop drafting and go over the editor's notes on my story coming out in August in Cricket magazine and send it back with some rewrites so I ended up not finishing the novel like I'd hoped after all.

So The Death of Pharaoh Tutankhamun ended at 109,891 words. Time to get out the scissors. Or a hatchet. But not for a few weeks. On Monday I hit a rewrite on another book project for an interested agent.

Still, I should celebrate, right? I'm ready to kick back with a movie and some cookies. Warm, fresh chocolate chip anyone?

Chain me to my desk!

My Enchanted Fridays Interview is suspended for a week due to a frantic past couple of weeks of writing. Yes, I've actually been writing again and what's that up ahead? Can it be that there's LIGHT at the end of this arduous, black, winding, stumbling block filled tunnel? After nearly a year of plowing through research, re-plowing, fretting, moaning and groaning and gnashing of teeth, stops and starts, head-banging days, and mostly utter terror that *this* is the book that I just cannot finish, oh my gosh! I think I'm actually going to type THE END to the first draft of The Murder of Pharaoh Tutankhamun today. (Maybe at midnight, but still.) Please, don't let anything happen to stop me. Bar the doors. Lock the windows. Unplug the phone. Get off the Internet! What's that? No, please, not the Interneeeeeeeet!!!

Um, back to your regularly scheduled programming.

I'll let you know if I'm still breathing tomorrow morning.

Enchanted Fridays – Journey of a Novelist

I’m thrilled to interview one of my favorite authors this enchanting morning—Barbara O’Connor!!!

Barbara and I have one of those "old-fashioned" friendships –like before the telephone was invented and visiting each other was pure fantasy for two buddies living on opposite sides of the country. We discovered each other on a writer’s chat group, started emailing and haven’t stopped—and it's been ten years!!!! Friendship through the written word—I’d say that’s perfect for two writers.

Barbara O'Connor

HOW TO STEAL A DOG

Frances Foster Books, FSG, 2007

Barb’s web site: www.barboconnor.com

Visit her new blog, too! http://greetings-from-nowhere.blogspot.com/

Kimberley: How did you get the idea for HOW TO STEAL A DOG?

Barbara: This story started with a sign posted in a garden center near my home:

Still Searching for Willy.

No Questions Asked.

A hefty reward was being offered for the return of the little dog described as “very shy." I left that garden center with two pots of geraniums in the trunk of my car and Willy on my mind. He stayed there for a long time and wouldn’t go away. And then one day, as with most of my books, a title popped into my head: How to Steal a Dog

I tried and tried to think of a story to go with the title, but, as usual, that didn’t work. I always have to wait and let the story come to me. I had almost given up hope when the character of Georgina Hayes appeared in my imagination, along with the first sentence of the book:

“The day I decided to steal a dog as the same day my best friend, Luanne Godfrey, found out I lived in a car.”

And then I was off and running.

Kimberley: Do you have any personal experience with homelessness? How did you go about doing the research – or maybe you just have this brilliant imagination. Which I totally do not doubt!

Barbara: I just have a brilliant imagination. (Kidding, of course.) Thankfully, I have no personal experience with homelessness. And why Georgina presented herself to me as homeless is a mystery. As for research, I confess that I did the research after I wrote the story.

Flannery O’Connor once said, “We don’t need to be immersed in experience, we just need to contemplate it.”

So that’s what I did. As I wrote Georgina’s story, I transported myself into that car where she lived. I imagined how it looked, how it smelled, how she would sleep, where she would keep her stuff, what she would see outside her window.

But I knew that it would be important to portray her situation sensitively and realistically. I needed to research, to educate myself about the reality of homelessness, and, in particular, rural homelessness. So I read everything I could get my hands on about rural homelessness, primarily from government agencies, such as the National Coalition for the Homeless and the Rural Poverty Research Center.

Kimberley: Love Georgina’s notebook ( I have a love affair myself with the color purple.) Was the notebook part of the book’s initial conception, or did it come later? We see her entire character arc through that notebook.

Barbara: Glad you like the notebook! I love using those sorts of devices to portray the feelings of a character. I used postcards in MOONPIE AND IVY and drawings in TAKING CARE OF MOSES. Georgina’s notebook was an effective way to show her evolving feelings about what she had done.

Kimberley: What was the best/worst part of writing HOW TO STEAL A DOG?

Barbara: The best part was crawling into Georgina’s head and actually stealing a dog. That was fun! The worst part was trying to figure out how to get her out of her predicament and trying to be realistic about her homelessness, yet still sensitive to the issue.

Kimberley: Where did the characters of Carmella and Mookie come from? (For those who haven’t read the book yet, Carmella is the owner of the stolen dog and Mookie is a homeless man full of down to earth wisdom and wit.) They’re so brilliant and quirky, and yet very real. Do you have this secret stash of fabulous characters hidden in your basement?

Barbara: Oh how I wish I had that secret stash! Carmella came purely from my imagination, but Mookie was inspired by a real person. My mother lives in an assisted living facility down in South Carolina. There was a wonderful old man who lives there – named Mookie! He sits out front all day long so he can smoke. When he told me his name, I knew I had to use him in a book. (His real name is Green Hill, Junior. That’s a pretty cool name, too.)

Kimberley: Tell us about your journey to publication. Give us the low-down on the agent/editor hunt and where were you when you got THE CALL that somebody wanted to publish your book?

Barbara: I started my career with biographies for children, but since my heart is with fiction, I’ll tell you about that journey. I actually got pretty lucky. I was in a writers group with Leslie Guccione, an author who, at the time, was writing a series for Scholastic. She offered to send my manuscript to her editor, Ann Reit. Ann liked the manuscript (Beethoven in Paradise) and asked if I’d be willing to work with her on revisions. Of course I said yes! We worked together on it for several months and then Ann decided it just wasn’t right for her. Talk about disappointing! But she offered to connect me with an agent, which, as you know, was a big favor and one which I was extremely grateful for. The agent was Barbara Markowitz. Barbara and I were a perfect match and are still together. Barbara ultimately sold BEETHOVEN IN PARADISE to Frances Foster at Farrar, Straus & Giroux.

I remember exactly the moment I got THE CALL. I was on vacation with my husband’s family in Florida. I don’t think I’ve ever been so excited.

Kimberley: Any advice for aspiring writers?

Barbara: Two things come to mind first for me with regard to aspiring writers. First, focus on finding your unique writing voice and write something different and fresh. You’ve got to stand out from the pack in such a competitive business. Second, don’t give up. Publishing requires lots of perseverance.

Kimberley: What are you working on now? Any books coming down the pipeline?

Barbara: I just finished the copyedits for my next novel, due out in the spring of 2008. It’s called GREETINGS FROM NOWHERE. This was a fun book for me because I was ready to challenge myself and try a multiple viewpoint story. This one has four points of view and was much harder than I had anticipated. Hopefully, I pulled it off. Time will tell, I guess.

Kimberley: The most surprising or unexpected thing that has happened to you since getting published.

Barbara: I wasn’t prepared for how much marketing I would have to do. I always figured you just write a book and get it published and that’s it. Ha! Little did I know I’d have to do mailings and prepare brochures and speak at conferences and all those things that I’m not particularly good at and don’t particularly enjoy.

Kimberley: What is your own secret wish (goal) for your life or writing?

Barbara: I’d love to reach a level of success where I could earn enough from royalties to not be so dependent on school visits for income. That would be cool! (Although I do enjoy going to schools a lot.) And name recognition would be pretty groovy.

Kimberley: My own secret wish is to meet you someday, but I won’t, um, steal a dog to buy my airplane ticket, okay? Thank you so much for being with us today, Barbara – and please, don’t stop writing!!! You have more fans than you know.

Barbara’s web site: www.barboconnor.com

Visit her new blog, too! http://greetings-from-nowhere.blogspot.com/

Shy No Longer

Man, I've been slammed this month. My WIP hasn't been touched in two weeks and I get very antsy when I only have a few chapters left to draft and I'm forced to put it aside. But it's also been a great month, too.

While in Arizona visiting my husband's mother for her 88th birthday (who still lives by herself and exercises on a treadmill no less!) we went to see Body Worlds in Phoenix. My oldest son is taking an anatomy/cadaver class and made a great tour guide. The displays/show of human bodies, embalmed in this plasticene process was stunning and mesmerizing - all these actual, REAL human bodies in various dramatic, athletic and *dance* poses to show how the human body works; the organs, the nervous system, digestion, lungs heart, the brain - everything. I thought I'd be more freaked out, but it was fascinating. Since my boys are older and have had so many biology classes they loved it, but my kids have had a lot of influence on me, like how I would never have gone to see all the action flicks over the years on my own, but how I adore those kinds of movies now because I experienced them through my boys' eyes and heard their excitement and talk about how cool and awesome the X-Men are or Spiderman. In fact, LOTR have become my all time favorite movies besides Gone With the Wind and Somewhere in Time. (Yes, I'm a romantic sap. And I watched all fifty hours of the "making of LOTR" on the extended DVD editions.) But I digress.

One thing I didn't expect at Body Worlds were all the very young kids in tow by their parents. I'm not sure I would have taken my children when they were that age. I kept thinking it was a little too much sensory stimulation and kind of scary to see the human body so exposed and gory even, although that's not the right word. For example, one of the plastinated cadavers was a woman on display upside down with all her reproductive organs open for inspection. There was also a room with embryos and fetuses from early conception to premature babies born at 32 weeks that did not survive. You get the picture. At the same time, the preservation is such that they almost seem *not* real, like store models or dummies except skinned and just muscles and bones. So you don't know what these people looked like when they were alive or how old they were when they died. I do highly recommend the show. Makes you look at your own life and body in a whole new way and I once again appreciated and admired the true miracle of life.

SCBWI Handsprings conference: The first page of my WIP was read/commented on by a First Pages editor's panel at the Friday evening reception and the visiting editors from Dutton, Random House and Holt did a fabulous job. I was so nervous listening to my work read out loud in front of a room full of people (the authors were kept anonymous) and then having it critiqued by Real Live Editors made me sweat. Later I knew I should have double dosed my deodorant. Anyway, I got GREAT comments and one of the editors gave me his card and asked to see the entire novel and even gave me the name of an agent to try! I was flying high with excitement, especially since I'd brought along my husband and youngest son who likes to write. We've had some great visiting editors before but these three dug into more details about their work, the process and what they are particularly publishing more than anybody else which is so nice because after a few conferences and couple dozen books on writing it's easy to tune out the basics of submission guidelines that you've heard a million times before.

Last week's Middle Eastern Belly Dance Show!!! Yes, I actually performed TWO dances (tribal cane dance and a more traditional veil/cabaret number) and did a presentation on the meaning and origin of the ancient dance and the women of the Bible at church for all the moms and teenage daughters. We created a Bedouin tent, sat on the floor on pillows, ate Middle Eastern food, enjoyed fabulous background music I compiled from my CDs and at the end I taught some basic belly dance moves. It was a blast and everybody loved it, even the skeptics in the group who thought belly dancing was like stripping or pole dancing (!). This has been in the works for about three months and I was so nervous I almost backed out. The next day I collapsed with the flu and then took off a day after that to pick up my son from college. Just got back yesterday and I think I'm done with laundry and shopping and errands and bills, although I'm still coughing.

I keep telling myself that the performance last week was good experience for when I sell my novel Secret Rites of the Goddess and go on tour doing belly dance/booksigning events. Ha, ha!

Tomorrow we do the wisdom teeth surgery and then please, after that can I write again?

Enchanted Fridays - Journey of a Novelist

Do you read Jane Austen over and over again?

Do you secretly wish you lived in the 19^th century?

Do you invite friends over for high tea?

Do you wish Jane Austen was still publishing novels from "the other side"?

Wish No Longer—I have the book for YOU!

After you read my chat with this awesome new author, Polly Shulman, fly on over to your nearest bookstore or library and grab her very first YA novel, ENTHUSIASM!

Once you start, I swear you won’t be able to put it down.

Polly Shulman

ENTHUSIASM

G. P. Putnam’s

Contemporary Young Adult 2006

Kimberley: What was the seed of the idea for Enthusiasm? How long have you been a Jane Austen fan and how did your novel get its title?

Polly: I've been a Jane Austen fan since seventh grade, when I stayed up until dawn reading Pride & Prejudice. I remember trembling when I read Darcy's letter putting Elizabeth in her place. It was one of the most intense literary experiences of my life.
Oddly, I don't remember exactly how I got the idea for Enthusiasm. All my life I wanted to write novels for young readers, but I somehow could never get past the opening chapter. I had a bunch of beginnings squirreled away in my hard drive. In the early Aughts, I had a fantastic freelance job writing weekly book reviews for Newsday, then my column got cut from the paper's budget, so I said to myself, "All right, Polly. Time to either get a job in an office or finish one of those novels." I consulted my best friend, who said, "What about that book you started a while back, with the girl climbing in her friend's window?" I said, "Girl climbing in a window? What are you talking about?" She said, "You know, the one where she's dressed up as a Jane Austen character?" So I searched my hard drive and found it, but I didn't really remember anything about writing it.

Funny you should ask about the title—it does have a story. I thought of "ENTHUSIASM" pretty soon after I buckled down to work on the book, which is about two girls: the narrator, Julie, and her best friend, Ashleigh. Julie is bookish and a little shy; Ashleigh is wildly outgoing and given to crazes, for everything from King Arthur to candy making. When Julie lends Ashleigh a copy of Pride and Prejudice, Ashleigh decides they need Austenesque romances of their own, so she drags Julie off to crash a dance at the local boys' boarding school. I knew I wanted an Austenesque title, an abstract noun or noun pair—something along the lines of Pride and Prejudice, Sense and Sensibility, and Persuasion. Enthusiasm seemed like the natural choice.

In fact, it seemed so natural that I thought someone must have already used it, so I Googled and found that someone had: Jane Austen's niece Anna! I found a series of letters from Aunt Jane thanking Anna for sending her manuscript and giving her material advice about it. Apparently, Anna originally named her book Enthusiasm but changed the title to Aunt Jane's suggestion: WHICH IS THE HEROINE? Aunt Jane says she prefers ENTHUSIASM: "I like the name ‘Which is the Heroine’ very well, and I daresay shall grow to like it very much in time; but ‘Enthusiasm’ was something so very superior that my common title must appear to disadvantage."

I thought about using "Which is the Heroine" for a subtitle, but my editor wisely talked me out of it.

Kimberley: What a fascinating peek into history! That’s a great story, Polly. So I have to ask, what is your favorite Austen book?

Polly: Pride and Prejudice. No, Persuasion. No, Emma. No, Sense and Sensibility. Whichever one I happen to be rereading at the time. Austen's juvenilia is amazing, too. She was a comic genius as a teenager. It's a different style from the novels—broader, more overtly satiric—but just as funny.

Kimberley: What were some of the challenges in writing Enthusiasm, the hardest parts, the easiest—if there is such a thing as easy writing! (An oxymoron if I ever heard one.)

Polly: Actually, once I got going I found it astonishingly easy to write. I was doing what I thought of as "real work" at the same time—editing books and articles about science (which continues to be a big part of how I make my living). I found it pretty freaky to go back and forth between Julie's love life and particle physics, or Ashleigh's friendship and the latest news from Mars. I did have some trouble with the narrative voice in Enthusiasm. I wanted Julie to sound a little old fashioned and Austenish, but I also wanted Ashleigh to sound like an over-the-top Austen parody when she spoke. It was hard to strike a balance and get the contrast right.

The love scenes were a little embarrassing to write—as if I were reading Julie's diary over her shoulder.

Kimberley: Which character do you most identify with, Julie or Ashleigh?

Polly: Definitely Julie. But sometimes my friends laugh and say, "You're such an Ashleigh!" Oddly, the ones who say that tend to be Ashleighs themselves.

Kimberley: That’s hilarious! So I gotta ask: Did you dream about Parr? He’s like, the perfect guy; sweet, romantic, poetry writer, stands under windows pining after his true love, great kisser, totally yummy.

Polly: Of course! He's my hero! I'm lucky enough to be married to someone from the same universe; those adjectives of yours pretty much describe my husband. Andrew doesn't stand under our windows or write me sonnets—he’s a graphic designer, not a poet—but he does make me the world's most romantic works of computer art. Enthusiasm was published right around my birthday, and to celebrate, he had my favorite chocolate shop make a chocolate bust of Jane Austen holding a copy of Enthusiasm. They had to build a special mold for it, which he designed.

Kimberley: Wow, what a great husband! Sounds like he is your Parr. Tell us about your journey to publication. Give us the low-down on the agent/editor hunt and where were you when you got THE CALL that somebody wanted to publish your book?

Polly: After I wrote "The End" and finished jumping around the room shrieking, I called my friends in the publishing business and asked them to suggest agents. I compiled their suggestions, researched, and sent out the manuscript to three agents; after an agonizing wait, three rejections came back. I cried for a couple of weeks, then called some more friends and sent the manuscript to three more agents. This time two of them wanted it. I loved them both. I chose the more experienced one, Irene Skolnick. She's had her own agency for many years and I was impressed with her client list. And she represents two of my friends, who both adore her.

She sent out my book and got three offers for it. That part's something of a blur for me, because just when it was happening my stepfather had a bad accident and had to spend several weeks in the hospital; I remember a lot more about that than about the sale of my book.

Once Irene got the offers, I talked to the editors and chose the one who I felt understood the book the best. One thought it was close to perfect the way it was, but I've been an editor all my working life, so I knew that it couldn't be perfect. Nothing ever is, let alone my writing! One thought it was too sweet and wanted me to make the story darker, which didn't feel right to me. The third one had a number of suggestions for improving it, which I thought were right on the money, so I picked her. I feel very lucky to have such a smart editor with such a good ear.

Kimberley: Any pitfalls? Advice for aspiring writers—or even us seasoned writers (meaning the ones that have already survived many bruises and brick walls?)

Polly: Hm... Don't give up. Don't throw out those first chapters, even if you think they're going nowhere. Don't let the inevitable rejections stop you. Take advice from readers, but be picky about whose. People might correctly identify problems with your book, but you might not like their suggestions for solving them. Or they might put their finger on the most interesting, vital part of your story and tell you to take it out because it makes them uncomfortable.

What helped me the most was my best friend, Anna Christina Buchmann[umlaut over the u], who's also writing a novel. We're each other's first readers, critics, cheerleaders. As soon as I finished a chapter, I would email it to her. She would read it and tell me "That's great, keep going." To a large extent, I wrote Enthusiasm for her: I wrote a book I knew she would want to read—a book she and I would both want to read. I'm glad other people turned out to want to read it too, but it would have been enough for me if it just pleased Anna Christina.

Kimberley: Yay for good friends! Any books coming down the pipeline?

Polly: I'm working on a fantasy novel about a pair of sisters who are witches. They live in Brooklyn with their mom, also a witch, who's trying to save the world from an evil magician. Unfortunately, she's trying too hard, so the girls have to save the world from their mom going overboard trying to save it.

It's much, much harder to write a fantasy than a romance. You have to invent a whole world and make it consistent. It's taking me a million years and every ounce of brain power I have. Not to mention all the mathematicians I've had to consult! I'm not kidding—so far I've had very generous help from a topologist at Brown, an applied mathematician at MIT, and a physicist at Harvard. I hope they don't get mad if my magic turns out to have contradictions in it.

Kimberley: The most surprising or unexpected thing that has happened to you since publishing your novel.

Polly: I'm thrilled at the email I get from readers. Some of them tell me about their friendships—there are a lot of Julies out there with Ashleighs for friends. Some of them tell me about the fiction or poetry they write, or ask for advice about their love lives. Every time I hear from one, it makes me happy all week. I especially like it when they say Enthusiasm made them read Jane Austen.

Kimberley: What is your own secret wish?

Polly: I've lived it—it came true. I always wanted to write a book that would give young readers at least a slight echo of what I felt when I read Pride and Prejudice for the first time. Now I wish and hope that I can do it again.

Kimberley: All your fans sure do – and that includes me!

Let’s hear it for Polly Shulman! Thank you so much for taking the time to let us peek into your world! You‘ve got lots of Enthusiasm and you're a doll!

Don’t miss Polly’s website for more delicious details and to play "Spot the Sonnet", the secret sonnet contained within the novel. www.pollyshulman.com

This is so cool!

I received some delightful news last night. A young man I know well who has been best friends with my son since they were five years old just got accepted to Columbia in New York for their three year Master's of Fine Arts program in Film. His dream is to have his own film company someday and at the tender age of 25 (with a wife and baby no less) Justin has already been involved in several movies, his biggest job last summer as a production assistant for a Christmas film being released this coming December nationwide; "Together Again for the First Time" starring David Ogden Stiers and Julia Duffy (Patty Duke was supposed to be in it, but that's a whole other story.)

The thing that totally tickles me is that six months ago Justin asked me if he could use the screenplay for my novel The Last Snake Runner for his application process for graduate school. About three years ago I thought it would be a kick to try a screenplay and I picked that novel because it's a very visual based war story/love story with a time travel twist. Two years ago Justin used my screenplay for analysis in a screenplay class while getting his undergraduate degree at BYU. (They had to bring in a screenplay based on a book). This time he used the treatment for his application - and it worked! He's accepted and starts this fall.

I'm so excited for him and to think my words helped him achieve this dream. One of those blessings the universe gives you - just when you wonder if anybody's noticing at all.

New Books!

Couple of announcements I'm sloooow in posting.

My good friend Cynthia Leitich Smith's new book TANTALIZE has blown out the gates with a delectable aroma of fine Italian dining--my favorite food, although Sanguini's got SCARY for the patrons (aka readers), and yet I find myself wanting to slip in the back door and snoop around despite the danger.

Just finished HOW TO STEAL A DOG by my dear friend Barbara O'Connor last night. Once again, she writes the PERFECT middle grade novel, full of all that southern talk and slang and wisdom that I adore. She just plunged into the Live Journal blogosphere, too as of yesterday.

So keep a lookout for their upcoming interviews with moi! Soon now, very soon. I promise.

Enchanted Fridays – Journey of a Novelist

It’s Friday—is this the best day or what?!?

I have the joy of kicking off my new series of interviews with some totally awesome authors. These are some of my favorite writers and I know they will soon become one of yours! Walk, don’t run to your nearest bookstore or library!

Pop open a cold one, grab a hot tea, or break open the bag of chocolate that’s calling to you (yeah, that one right behind you) and sit back and relax.

Whether it’s reading a book that whisks you off into a new world or you’re a writer creating your own, always do one thing: Enjoy the journey . . .

Christine Kole MacLean
HOW IT’S DONE
flux, an imprint of Llewellyn

New York Public Library has just selected How It’s Done
for its 2007 list of Books for the Teen Age!!!!
(That needs a bunch of exclamation points!)

Q: What led you to write a novel about a girl falling in love with an older man—a college professor no less! I'll admit I had a crush on a teacher in high school while I was working as his aide in a special education class. He didn't wear a wedding ring and I was "crushed" again when I learned he actually was married! Not that I'm looking for your tell-all or *confession*, but did you draw on any kind of personal experience? No pressure here!

CKM: Maybe it was just the community I grew up in (small town, not much to do) or my socially precocious group of friends, but we all dated guys who were older—in some cases a lot older. The summer after graduation, a friend of mine married a guy eight years older than she was. One of the things I’ve thought about a lot was how cool my parents played it when I was dating an older guy. They never tried to tell me what to do. I wondered, “What happens when parents don’t play it cool?” There’s the seed of the idea.

Q: I admired your ability to get inside Grace's head and heart, expressing her feelings and emotions without sentimentality or melodrama. What were some of the challenges in writing this novel? What were the hardest parts to write and which poured out of your fingers onto the keyboard?

CKM: Thanks! I worked on it for about two years, but I was also writing other things during that time. The first draft, which I wrote in third person, took me a year. In the second draft (six months), I switched the story to first person. I spent another three months on the third draft. The hardest part was Grace. I was frustrated with how slow she was to see she was making a mistake. But when the story begins, Grace is 18 and has been somewhat sheltered. I had to remember she doesn’t have the experience to know the things that would help her see the relationship slightly more objectively. (Although, come to think of it, who among us ever sees a lover objectively?) Her relationship with Michael is a “starter relationship.” She’s just learning. The fact that he’s a lot older and ready for different things raises the stakes considerably.

Conversely, Tori, Liv, Will—scenes with them were a blast to write. I have to add, however, that precious little ever “pours out of my fingers onto the keyboard.”

Q: There are some provocative discussion questions at the back of the novel. Did you write those or did your publisher? At the risk of appearing ignorant, what IS the IT'S in HOW IT'S DONE? What is IT for YOU?

CKM: The publisher came up with the questions, and I can’t even answer some of them! I think there’s more than one “it” in the book. “It” refers to sex and seduction, obviously, but also to bigger things, e.g., finding yourself, breaking off a relationship that’s wrong—even if it feels good, and ultimately growing up and being your own person, not whoever your parents want you to be or whoever your boyfriend wants you to be. How *is* it done? One step at a time. There will be missteps along the way. Those are the times we learn the most.

Q: New and published authors love to hear about other writer’s journeys toward publication. Was writing something you always wanted to do? Where were you when you got *the call* that somebody wanted to publish your book?

CKM: I’ve known since I was about eight that I wanted to be a writer and I never looked back. I’ve been a professional writer since college, working at magazines, ad agencies, and corporations. I still do some of that work on a freelance basis to fund my fiction-writing habit. I’ve never felt driven to write—perhaps because I came to writing so young and it has always been integrated into my life. And I confess to being stumped when asked why I write. To me, it feels like being asked why I breathe or sleep. I don’t mean I’d die without it. It’s simply that I can’t imagine not writing, in some form or another.

It was a rainy October day when I got the call at home, just as I was thinking about what to make my sick five-year-old for lunch. The editor made an offer and I asked her if I could get back to her. At the time, I was reading a book about the ins and outs of publishing, and I literally had not yet read the chapter on advances and contracts. That’s how green I was.

Q: Pitfalls? Things you learned along the way? Anything you would do differently?

CKM: I would have written a breakout first novel. LOL!

Q. The most surprising or unexpected thing that’s happened since publishing your books.

CKM: The most surprising thing? I’ve grown into a good public speaker, or so audiences tell me. I recently did a session on how to find the time to write (I still freelance in addition to writing fiction) and got so much positive feedback on it. One person told me my presentation had changed his life. While he was obviously exaggerating, what he meant was that he’d gotten a lot out of my session. Even five years ago I wouldn’t have guessed that I could be an effective public speaker.

Q: I’m sure he was not exaggerating! What are you working on now?

CKM: I just finished a rough draft of the fourth book in my series of Mary Margaret novels for 8- to 12-year-olds. The working title is MERRY MARY MARGARET CHRISTMAS and it’s scheduled for Fall ’08. I’ve been mulling over a picture book idea, so I may get serious about that, but I’m also gearing up to start another YA.

Q. Yay on both the new Mary Margaret novel (great title btw!) and embarking on another YA! Good luck to you, Christine. Last question: What is your own secret wish (goal) for your life or writing?

CKM: I’m thrilled that publishers think my books are worth publishing, but I’m not satisfied with my writing skills. I have a long way to go on that front. My not-so-secret wish is to get better. A lot better.

Thank you, Christine, for being our very first Enchanted Friday guest author! (Hear that thunderous applause from the great blog reaches of the universe?)

I hope, dear reader, that your appetite is whetted to read HOW IT'S DONE. You'll be hooked from the first page!

Don't forget to visit Christine at her website: www.christinekolemaclean.com

Bookmark this blog for the next Enchanted Friday installment!

Watch This Space!!!

Enchanted Fridays - Journey of a Novelist

I'll be doing interviews with some very cool, chic and awesome YA authors right here in this very blog so Stay Tuned. First one will be Friday, March 30.

Which, actually, is the last day of my Spring Break. I get to sleep in next week! Yay!!!!!!!!!!!!!! Well sort of. I'm also planning on writing a book. The second half at least. We'll see how fried I am come next weekend.

Clearing the desk

I got sucked into critique land with twenty crits for a contest. Read them all twice, wrote up a full page of coments and suggestions for each one, filled out a talley sheet, picked winners, and mailed them off yesterday. OFF MY DESK! And floor. And nightstand. Yippee!

Now back to MY stuff. Feeling very selfish. And slow. Because I've barely plowed through half of the 200 pages I wrote last September and am rereading so I can get back to drafting the rest of this humongous, ancient Egypt historical. I've also been helping my son with some essays he's needed to write for a class and did some critiquing for a 15 year old girl I teach piano. She's actually a pretty good writer and I wouldn't be surprised if she's published some day. But it sometimes feels like my life is not my own . . .

Check out this interview with Andrew Karre at Flux. Good stuff.

Want to read some great hooks from WIP's by fledgling writers and feedback from a terrific agent? Go here. You'll come up gasping for air about three hours later.

Great news a few days ago: My story, "Rattlesnake Rain" will be published in Cricket Magazine this August! Finally.

SCBWI schmooze tonight and dinner with Nancy H. beforehand. Off to do a few pages of rewriting before I leave.

Before I forget, check out Bev Katz Rosenbaum's web site. Good stuff and she also critiques manuscripts at a very reasonable price.

Now go write.

Miscellaneous, et al.

Just finished making a massive homemade lasagna for dinner tonight. I always do my sauce and cheese mix a little differently each time so hopefully it will taste okay. I tend to experiment when I'm having people over for dinner. I'm not sure why. All my old recipes just seem boring. But we're feeding two hungry missionary guys and they'll probably eat anything. Now that I think about it, my baking started this morning at five a.m. I got up and made chocolate chip muffins for my early morning class. Fifteen year-olds love food. If you didn't already know that.

Finished three books over the weekend that I was rereading about the murder/death of King Tut for my novel. I'm SO glad I did. Lots of details got put back into my head that fell out while I was in Bulgaria and revising my other two novels. They're filled with yellow sticky notes which I now need to put into my outline - or somewhere.

I've also become addicted to some blogs. In addition to the ones on the right side of your screen I've been reading Jennifer Jackson, an agent at Donald Maas Agency. WatchMeBe an aspiring writer, Mette Ivie Harrison ,a writer I recently discovered that I definitely want to read. In fact, I'm on my way to the library to get one of her books. And Shannon Hale, a recent Newbery winner whose first adult novel, AUSTENLAND will soon be out. (I've been watching all of Jane Austen's movies again recently. Okay, they're not HER movies, but you know what I mean).

The next best thing to writing is reading about writing. I jump around to a lot of other blogs, too, from people who post comments. Yesterday I posted for the first time on Alex Flinn's blog. I feel very shy about posting for some reason. Maybe I'll get braver.

Here's a link to the recent Newbery *storm* of the last week. Bad words, banned books, what a ruckus. New York Times letters to the editor.

Because You asked

Yes, I emailed said editor from post below and she said, "Do send it on to me, I'd love to take a look at the revision." Yay! She's a dream editor for this middle grade magical, bayou project. All fingers and toes crossed, but I'm also trying to be realistic. The good news is that this editor usually responds in a very timely manner of no more than a couple of months. She's very fab that way. And just bought a project from another writer friend recently. (A big shout-out congrats to Melissa!)

Of course, I had to go back through the entire manuscript one more time - the first chapter has been redone about 20 times in the last month (why are first chapters - the first page especially - the hardest?) - and it was mailed last Friday just before the post office closing. I'm always barely making it before the post office closes!

This week I've been digging back into my YA chick-lit, IN A PARIS MINUTE again because I'm feeling the need to flesh out my characters more deeply. I also changed the backstory to Sasha's boyfriend, Matthew, because he felt too flat and he's an important part of the story. Of course, aren't all guys?! Because of Matthew (and the French hottie, Jean-Paul), Sasha learns that what she wants isn't necessarily what she needs.

Just finished reading two of the Newbery Honor books, PENNY FROM HEAVEN by Jennifer L. Holm and RULES by Cynthia Lord. They were both wonderful and I couldn't stop reading until I got to "The End". Truly fabulous writing and stories.

Last week I read SEE JANE DATE by Melissa Senate, a very fun adult chick-lit and THE SECRET LIFE OF BEES by Sue Monk Kidd. I'd heard about this last one for years and finally read it. Thought-provoking, moving, incredible writing, and I also loved the southern setting which I hadn't realized about it before.

Feeling Dumb

Okay, in my last post I said I hadn't heard of any of the award-winning books! Where did that come from? I majorly take that back. I had heard/read all of the Printz books, but not the Newbery's, although I knew some of the authors. Whew, feel better. You were probably wondering who is this author who knows NOTHING about what's going on in the publishing world? But I do read a lot of terrific authors who have never won any *big* award.

It's Saturday, hubby is out running errands, I've already done a load of laundry, vacuumed/mopped the kitchen, exercised and given attention to all 5 cats. Now I get to do some more rewriting on The Healing Spell. It was critiqued this past week by my good friend, Cindy-Rae, who grew up on a bayou in the south and gave me some wonderful advice about various minor tidbits in the story. Things that are going to help raise it another notch. At least that's the plan.

Goal: Tuesday I email editor who gave me the suggestion to change the 3rd person POV to 1st person POV and ask if I can resubmit. The viewpoint change has made a huge difference and it's taken me all month, but I'm closing in.

Feeling optimistic.

Award Time!

On Monday, the annual awards in children's and young adult literature were announced. You may know them best as the Newbery, Caldecott, Printz, etc.

There's a live feed from the convention hall so viewers can actually watch the announcements from anywhere in the country which is pretty cool. I did that last year. Lots of cheering and clapping and it was pretty exciting to see the books and the authors. Unfortunately this year I was at the dentist with my son so missed it.

Immediately I placed reservations for the Newbery and Printz award winners at my local library online. Love how easy that is to do, and I can't wait to read these new books. The weird thing is, I hadn't heard of any of them. Makes me feel out of the loop.

ALA Award Winners Here

(There's a link to click on the home page for the literary awards and it gives a full listing. Also, very cute picture of Orlando Bloom on his READ poster.)

Happy Reading and Congratulations to all the winners!

Boots to die for!

If you think Parisians or Americans wear chic boots, think again. Bulgarian boots are fab, fab, fab! Every girl over there wears them and they're tres adorable, with buckles and laces and different colors and styles. The shoe stores are tiny, you can hardly turn around in them, but when my son wanted to take home a pair of their sneakers (also very cute and not like what we have here) I decided to take the plunge even though purchasing boots wasn't in my budget - although the $$$ exchange from American to Bulgaria levas definitely works in our favor so my boots were only about $30 US dollars. I mean, how could I resist that?

My Bulgarian boots are one of my favorite souvenirs and all my girlfriends PLUS the high school girls at church think they're fantastic. Sooooo cute! I gotta get a picture posted here. I will. Soon. Promise.

Happy New Year 2007!

Some of you may be wondering if I got lost in Bulgaria - or fell off the planet. I did neither, but it's been such a whirlwind since we returned from Bulgaria that I haven't blogged a single word. Throw in visiting family, trip recovery, surgery for broken leg for youngest son, writing projects, Thanksgiving, Christmas, college apps, and here it is January.

Bulgaria was totally wonderful, emotional, inspiring, beautiful and fabulous. I could see immediately why my son loved it so much and why he didn't want to come home. We're all homesick now for that extraordinary little country and already planning our next trip. Hopefully pics will be up on my web site in the next few weeks if you want a peek. We also took side trips to Istanbul and England on the way home.

Favorite stops: castles, Stonehenge, small villages, dinners with my son's friends, he as Translator Extraordinaire, although we completely enjoyed being able to say our little bit of Bulgarian and delighting them, too!

Are you making your New Year goals? That's what I'm sitting down to do this week. I need to ponder where I'm at in my writing career, personally and professionally, decide where I'd like to be by the end of the year, and what projects I want to begin - or finish as the case may be with three novels needing some rewrites.

Mostly I want to continue to become a better writer. I'm constantly amazed at the wonderful writers that I discover with all the great books coming out every month. Sometimes the imps of jealousy get me to feeling like I haven't even *touched* that caliber of writing yet - and I desperately want to. But I'm working toward it and trying to remember that I have a voice, my own voice, one that nobody else has. And that's gotta count for something. Along with working hard and not giving up. That's the important thing. Never give up - and try to keep the joy every day.

Now I'm going to go eat some homemade, fresh out of the oven, zucchini bread. I do make a mean loaf.

Off to Bulgaria

Yep, hubby and I leave in two days for the former Eastern bloc country of Bulgaria with side trips to Istanbul and England. I'm just a packing, cleaning, blogging, emailing, bill-paying, list making woman right now. And still trying to draft a little every day on my current WIP, The Murder of Pharaoh Tutankhamun.
Taking along my pillow, snacks, The Writer's Book of Hope, 7 Habits of Highly Effective People and a couple light fiction romps for reading pleasure. Hope the inflight food and movie are good. 26 hours of flying and airports isn't exactly a good time is had by all situation.
My folder with hotel confirmations, maps, tour itineraries and phone numbers is *thick*.
Doveezhdenay! (Put that in Cyrillic letters and you get "Goodbye in Bulgarian. As if you hadn't already guessed.)
Kimberley

Ancient Egypt

Thebes, Malqata, Valley of the Kings, Ancient Egyptian gardens, the City of Aten, Egyptian medicinal practices, Amun the god of Kings . . . just a few things I've been researching like a mad woman the last couple of months.

I've got a stack of 15 books about Egypt and King Tut sitting practically under my feet that I read during the summer. I also keep having to refer to many of them as I'm drafting. Yes, I finally started writing the new book. Trying to get words to flow through my brain and out my fingers onto the keyboard is scary, daunting, and this time around even SLOWER than usual. Disconcerting, but I'm telling myself to enjoy the process. Some things can't be rushed. Even if it stinks and will have to be rewritten a dozen times.

I still have this crazy goal to finish the entire first draft no later than October 7th. Yes, two weeks from today. Yeah, right, you're thinking. Because I leave October 9th for Bulgaria to pick up my son from his mission. YAY!!! I'll be gone nearly three weeks so I'm going to start pushing myself.

Meanwhile, The Healing Spell went out to 5 houses. Another project done, and out the door with prayers, hopes, and some fairy dust sprinkled on the envelope. Think that will last until it gets to New York?

Bigger question: will it work? :-)

Under my skin

Oh, the joys and the banes of computers. My computer for online stuff with all my accounts and addresses crashed in March. And I mean CRASHED! Nothing is recoverable. Need to purchase a whole new system. Which hasn't happened yet because of college looming this fall.

So . . . that's why I disappered from my blog. Plus I've had some very stiff writing deadlines. I'm happy to report that I have two complete novels out making the rounds of publishers as of a month ago. With a third nearly finished and a proposal for a fourth and a synopsis for a fifth. Feels good.

I go back to research and begin character sketches end of this week for my ancient Egyptian novel based on the short story, The Mummy Tent, I recently sold to Cricket Magazine. I'm chomping at the bit to get going on it, but I need to keep my attention on this rewrite for The Healing Spell. As of Friday I am *done* rewriting this book. It's going to stay out until it sells. I know there is an editor out there just waiting for it. All I have to do is find her.

Other good news: Got our tickets to go to Bulgaria in October to pick up my son from his mission. We're also going to hit Istanbul, Turkey, and England to visit cousins on the way home. We'll be gone 18 days. But mostly I can't wait to hug my son. It will be 25 months since I'll have seen him - since September 2004. Pick-up day is October 11th at 9:00 a.m. in Sofia, Bulgaria. Needless to say, October will be a non-writing month this year.

It's hot in the house already. A quick shower and then it's time to hit the rewrites once more. The manuscript is lookin' good though. My almost twelve-year-old character, Livie Moulaison, is under my skin.

What's under yours today?

Happy Valentine's Day!

I got home from teaching my class this morning, peeled off my dress and the nylons and heels - and discovered two boxes of pecan/caramel turtles and chocolate truffles sitting on my desk chair waiting for me. And a beautiful card from my darling husband with a personal note that made me cry. He is so perfect! I'm feeling very blessed today. It's always a doubly special day, too, not only is it Sweetheart's Day, but it's my birthday as well.

So I'm forgetting about being another year older and thinking about being loved instead. Hope you are, too.

What's for Dinner?

Ah, the question that never goes away and must be answered EVERY SINGLE DAY! Sometimes feels like the bane of my life. Just got home with wet hair from Misty's Hair Salon and have been worrying this question all morning like a dog with a bone. So I checked out the fridge and discovered three dishes of leftovers. Italian chicken, meatballs with penne noodles and cheese and veggie lasagna. All of them created by *moi* in the past three days. Throw together a salad, warm up some bread and voila! Dinner is served.
Now I can get back to work . . .

Breakfast Musings

I'm sitting here eating my morning oatmeal, cruising email, websites, and my favorite blogs and trying to get my derriere in gear to start work on another project. (*Derriere* being the perfect word since the next project in the queue is partly set in Paris and has lots of fun French phrases sprinkled throughout. Title: IN A PARIS MINUTE.

This weird and aggravating place I'm in is not becuse I don't have plenty to work on. There are two completely drafted manuscripts waiting for rewrites, research, future ideas to outline, but I'm in this awful abyss after sending off one project and trying to get past the inertia to begin again.

This drives me crazy. I was determined last week that I would only take a day or two off and then get going again. I DO have a goal to get a couple more full novels subbed to publishers before spring hits. Never seems to work. It's like I mentally shut down. Just want to rent about five chick flicks and veg out in front of the TV.

I am easily intimidated by other's success and talent.
I am easily overwhelmed by the sheer mental and physical work writing is, especially because a couple of my critiques on the PARIS project are not particularly kind.( I mean I know there are problems but they could have been *nicer*, right?)
Maybe it's pure laziness.
Maybe it's fear.

Or all of the above.

So I make these lists of everything else I got accomplished while I wasn't writing just to make myself feel good. Visits, phone calls, bills, shopping, reading (got through about 10 books in the past week. Some good, some ho-hum), helping kids with homework, cleaning, knitting a blanket for the premie hospital project our church is doing, making homemade chicken soup.

I need to call my mother, too.
She probably thinks I've dropped off the planet.
I have.
It's called the writer's abyss. I'm at the bottom.
Wave if you can see me.

Notes From Your Long Lost Warrior Woman

Okay, okay, don't hit me . . . I know I've been incommunicado (sans blogging) for three months. Three months tomorrow to be exact now that I look at my handy dandy calendar. I'm baaaaack. I hope.

What have I been doing you may ask?

Right around Halloween I kicked my tail into high gear and finished a complete 95,000 word draft of Secret Rites of the Goddess just in time for turkey day and a week long trip to Arizona, our usual hot spot for Thanksgiving.

December was a mix of getting ready for the holidays, deciding to go visit family in Utah (my brothers) for a week, get plane reservations for mom to come back to my house for another week through New year's, cleaned house for company, direct play with the high school kids at church, Christmas shopping - lots of Amazon ordering!, revising the manuscript, college applications for son, Eagle Scout project for same son, trying to get to my desk for more revision work which ended up just giving me heart palpatations I was such a bundle of nerves!!! Having only a few minutes at a time and pages and pages of notes and changes to do does not make for happy revising.

No wonder I got sick on New Year's Day with flu and am just now recovered.

January: Once I sent mom back off to Arizona and spent a few days in bed, it was back to my desk at last.

I'm happy to report that the manuscript is IN THE MAIL! As of 5 p.m. yesterday. Barely made the post office closing. Fingers crossed that *interested* editor will receive it by Friday.

I'm whipped. Logged in about 100 hours the past 2.5 weeks.

Today it's gray skies and flakes of snow. Got son's driver's licence renewed this morning, did a load of laundry, managed an upper body weight workout, prescription pick-up for other son, grocery shopping, emails off to editor and agent and now I'm taking the rest of the day OFF!

ttfn. I promise.

Long Time No Blog

Hobbs was GREAT! Warm, wonderful, dedicated librarians, teachers, parents - and kids! Yay to all the great people I met and the fantastic writing the students did during The Creative Diary workshop! They wrote their darling hearts out while lunch was cooking in the background in the cafeteria kitchens and their stomachs were rumbling. A big thanks as well to the Powells who graciously hosted my husband and I in their home and then wrote about my visit on the teacher's listserve - which netted me a couple more school invites from other parts of the state. Fabulous.

Came home to a frenetic homelife and a funeral and a friend moving away and a story to revise for Cricket Magazine ("Rattlesnake Rain") as well as trying to get my head back into Secret Rites . . .

What's the secret to my time travel dilemma? Meditation, a good night's sleep, and sticking my derriere in the desk chair!

Time Travel the Hard Way

Ergh - this is the hardest thing to do - STOP in the middle of drafting the second half of my delicious new historical novel, Secret Rites of the Goddess, and drive 300 miles to do a school visit. Three hundred miles for a school visit is hard enough! And not very usual actually, but my hubby is getting home from his business trip in Dallas tonight and going with me down to Hobbs. I'm visiting two schools and doing a talk and signing at the local community arts center. They're excited - I've got butterflies. No matter how many times I do a workshop or presentation I get nervous days in advance. Why??? I'm cursed.
So I'm leaving at 5 a.m. tomorrow morning. Will be back this weekend.
Going in and out of 1800 BC is tough time travel. My head is spinning.

A Taste of Bulgaria

Здравейте! как си? България е най-доброто място на света!

Translation: Hello, how are you? Bulgaria is the best place in the world!

I just wrote to my son serving in Bulgaria (our weekly email) and he sent me this phrase using the Cyrillic alphabet. So I had to try pasting it here and see if it worked. Looks like it does! Awesome. He's definitely on my mind all the time. And in my prayers.

We plan to fly to Sofia, Bulgaria (the capital) when his two years are finished next September and pick him up, travel around the country, see the cities where he served, meet the friends he made. So I better start learning some phrases myself . . . so I can at least say hello when I meet people.

I have a pack of homemade alphabet flash cards on my nightstand. My son and I learned it a year ago together before he left. We'd put up a few letters every week in the kitchen, and test each other, but I've forgotten many of them so I'm beginning to review them again.

Now I need to learn how to say "goodybe" . . . until next time.