My Psycho Eye Doctor

At last, you all get to hear the long, sad, sorry tale of my psycho eye doc.

No, really - she has major issues.

And me? I'm an angel. But I'm feeling a titch ranty on the subject, so: fair warning. Pretend we're having martinis over lunch while I regale you with this story.

As we all sadly know, one of the most difficult aspects of moving to a new place is finding new service providers. I was due for my annual eye exam sometime around February, but I put it off because I just didn't want to deal with finding a new eye doc, too. Then, sometime around the end of May, I lost a contact lens. Just one, but it forced the issue.

I asked around, got a recommendation, made an appointment - then discovered that doc wasn't in my network. Canceled the appointment, checked my insurance network to find five eye docs in Santa Fe, all looking equally anonymous. I picked the only woman in the group, for the sake of solidarity and having no other criteria.

I have come to sorely regret that decision.

She works only on Wednesdays, Fridays and Saturdays. No, I don't know why. I call to make an appointment and leave a voice mail. A woman calls me back saying "This is Dr. Psycho's office. I understand you'd like to make an appointment." Yes, please, I say, because I lost a contact lens.

"What kind of lenses do you wear - hard or soft?"

"Semi-soft, oxygen permeable lenses."

Pause. "All lenses are oxygen permeable. Are they hard or soft?"

"Semi-soft," I say.

Pause. "What brand are they?"

Brand? "I've never seen a brand associated with my lenses."

"There's not a name on the peel-pack?"

"I don't know what a peel-pack is."

"So you don't know what brand they are or if they're hard or soft."

By this time, I'm thinking this is the dumbest, most passive-aggressive receptionist I've ever dealt with. "Look," I say, "I started out wearing hard lenses, then eventually moved to oxygen-permeable semi-soft lenses."

"Well, let's just make you an appointment and we'll see."

At last! So we make an appointment for June 5. Please note this is nearly six weeks ago.

Ten minutes later, my phone rings. Dr. Psycho's office again. She launches into this thing about how she really needs to know what kind of lenses I'm wearing now. Slowly it dawns on me that I've been talking to Dr. Psycho herself all this time.

(Yes - I'm slow on the uptake. Turns out she has no receptionist, no staff. Does everything herself in this little stark and empty office. But I digress.)

So, she concludes, what she really needs are the records from my previous eye doc. This is a simple solution so I agree. Done, request to my very efficient previous eye doc (how I miss him!) sent.

I go in on June 5. I really am trying to be open-minded. We got off on the wrong foot on the phone. Clearly our personalities don't sync. All I want is a replacement lens, because I'm wearing one lens from 2009 and an older one from, say, 2007. When I tell her this is what I'm doing on the phone, she laughs and laughs and laughs. In kind of a creepy way.

(geez - we already blew through the first martini. time to order another round?)

She does my exam. At this point I should mention that I've been wearing glasses since I was nine and contact lenses since I was ten. I've been through a lot of eye exams. Which is better: this one? or this one? Sometimes the choice isn't a clear one. This one might look darker but this one might look crisper. When I say there's a minor difference or none, she becomes impatient and insists I choose. She dilates my eyes, saying she'll use just a small amount because light-irised people like us don't need much. She puts in so much, fluid is dripping down my cheek. I regret putting on eye makeup.

She promises me loaner lenses and talks me into trying soft lenses from, yes, a peel-pack. She teaches me how to put them in and is shocked that I can do it quickly. I've been putting in contact lenses for over 30 years, I remind her. She explains the process again and tells me how difficult it is.

I agree to try the soft lenses for a few days, since I'm open-minded like that. Even though I'm pretty sure every eye doc I've ever had says soft-lenses aren't for me because of my astigmatism. That's not so true Dr. Psycho says. She's all focused on my age and thinks I'm resistant to getting bifocals. I haven't needed them yet, I tell her. You might need reading glasses she says. Before I lost this lens, I could see perfectly, I say. Yes, but you're getting to the age where you need reading glasses, she says.

I sigh.

I tell her that my previous eye doc set up my lenses so that the center is for near-reading and the edges are for distance and it's worked great. She shakes her head at me. She says no, no they weren't - she's seen the chart. In fact, she's quite convinced my previous lenses were a mistake.

But I could see really well. This does not matter. I might need to think about reading glasses.

I don't like the soft lenses. Comfortable, sure, but I can't see very well. She asks me to read with them on and I say I can't see the text in my lap. She frowns at me like I'm lying. I remind her that she dilated my eyes, so I won't be able to focus well until they get back to normal. She laughs and says, oh right! she forgot!! and forgive her, because it's just been such a busy morning.

I know it's too late to make this short, but I'll try.

I don't like the soft lenses, so I call in and she orders the "hard" lenses for me, reminding me of the additional expense. She's all about expense and discounts. I received a 10% discount on my visit. I don't know why. I just want to be able to see. I go back to wearing my 2009/2007 lenses, which is a bit disconcerting because my eyes don't quite work together right, but at least I can pretty much see.

On June 16, I go in. She gives me the new lenses in a case on which she's sharpie marked a big R & L for which lens is which, even though the case is embossed with the letters already. She makes a point of saying she's sure those are in the correct order.

I cannot see. She runs me through the tests and I can't see a thing. I'm nearly in tears. She's impatient with me saying I can't see. I ask her if she's sure they're in the right order, because it looks a lot like when I inadvertently switch them. She thinks I just need to adapt because those previous lenses were such a mistake. I say I can't drive home like this, so no way. Fine, she'll order me new lenses. I ask if she wants to examine me with the 2009 lens in, which she never has, and she says no and launches into this explanation of why they were such a mistake, showing me the chart, which I can't read because, duh, I can't see.

At this point, I begin to actively hate her.

I stick with it. Just get through this. Small problems compared to, say, working in an Apple factory in China.

I call my previous eye doc for a sanity check. Dr. Everett King in Laramie, Wyoming. A prince of a man and a fine doc, if you happen to be in that neighborhood. He looks at my chart, looks at her determination of my prescription and thinks she's partly confused because my eyesight has improved considerably. Ironic, since one of the bad effects of the evil mistake lenses was to be to worsen my eyesight. But the lovely Dr. King offers to order me replacement lenses and ship them to me if I can't get ones that work from her.

I feel like someone has handed me a bouquet of roses.

(Let's order dessert, okay?)

On June 23, I go back in. She tells me this time the right lens is marked with a dot. Clearly so I can't screw it up again. She tests me. The lenses are adequate. I can't see quite as well at all vision lengths, but I can see well enough. I'm out of there.

She wants to schedule me for a follow-up in one week. I say no, that would be the 4th appointment and I've been there enough times. She insists and I give in. July 10 - farther out than she likes, but I have family coming July 4 weekend and I don't want to take more work time for this. She calls on July 3, saying I missed my appointment. I say no, it's for next week. She says no, she had me down for July 3. I apologize.

My family, who hear the call in the car, ask what's up and I tell them my eye doc is psycho. Why are you going back, they ask?

Really good question.

(Don't worry - this is almost over. I'll pick up the tab.)

So I leave her a message saying thanks for everything, but I'm not coming back in. The lenses are fine. I don't mention I'm never coming back again, but I'm sure it's implied.

She leaves me a nearly rabid voice mail in return, telling me it's imperative that I come in.

I ignore it. But I save it, just in case I need it for, oh, say, a restraining order.

She sends me a freaking CERTIFIED LETTER.

When I see who it's from, I nearly refuse it. Then I figure, she wants it for her liability. Fine. I accept. We should be done now.

Hopefully.

I'll let you all know if she contacts me again, at which point I'll have to tell her to cease and desist.

So, let's talk about you - what's going on in your life??

Conditioning

Yesterday was a fun day. Release day is kind of like a birthday, where everyone is nice to you all day long.

Here's my celebratory martini at the end of the day with my Twitter pals.

I toasted, then took it out on the patio to enjoy. It was a warm evening. Hot, in fact. Like mid-90s hot.

I know to most of you in the East and South, that's not so bad. But for us at 6,300 feet, it's unusually warm. After the sun set, we watched Daybreakers and by bed time it was still 85 in the house and I realized I didn't feel good, I had been so warm for so long. So we did something we've never done before.

We turned on the air conditioning.

I know, I know - this is not a big deal for 99% of you out there. But David and I both grew up in the West, at fairly high altitudes, where air conditioning is not that necessary. In fact, none of the previous three homes we've shared even had air conditioning.

Plus, I generally don't like air conditioning. I like fresh air, natural breezes and bird song. I don't like cold air blowing on me so much. I resist having the ceiling fans on, even, for that reason.

So, we turned on the air conditioning and closed the windows. Let me tell you: that cool air filling the house was a sweet benediction. We're lucky to have an energy/space efficient house, so the cooling was palpable. I immediately felt tons better, which just confirmed that I'd really gotten overheated.

I know air conditioning is a luxury. People lived for thousands of years without it, but they also got sick and died young. I know people bemoan the loss of the evening porch society, when everyone sat outside to cool in the evenings. Now they're sealed inside, with their tvs and their interwebs.

But is sure is nice to have when you want it!

Release Me

According to the Blogging Handbook for Writers, since today is release day for Petals & Thorns, I must blog about that and only that.

Which means I have to save the story of my psycho eye doctor for tomorrow.

Some of us were getting a bit punchy on Twitter yesterday, reviewing the "rules" for how to behave on release day.

1. Must blog about it. @nwfoodie cited the Blogging Writer By-Laws, paragraph 291, sub paragraph J, section Z.

2. I should "SQUEE" on twitter every thirty minutes, the equivalent of squealing in excitement.

3. Tweet OMG! every hour, on the hour. (For Oh My God! if you don't know.)

4. Use ALL CAPS for the ENTIRE DAY. Preferably with the phrase BUY MY BOOK!

5. Generally drive everybody nuts.

Okay, maybe somewhere in the middle of that is some truth. I've actually unfollowed people who were this bad. I kid you not.

So far, though, today is really fun. Lots of Twitter friends are wishing me Happy Release Day and announcing how they just bought it. I've decided not to mention it on Facebook, since I have clients on there and this one goes beyond the pale. Now I get to be nervous, wondering how everyone will like it...

Thus, with no further dithering. Here's the official Loose Id plot summary. (Look! I'm on the home page! SQUEE!)

In exchange for her father’s life, Amarantha agrees to marry the dreadful Beast and be his wife for seven days. Though the Beast cannot take Amarantha’s virginity unless she begs him to, he can and does take her in every other way. From the moment they are alone together, the Beast relentlessly strips Amarantha of all her resistance.

If Amarantha can resist her cloaked and terrifying husband, she gains his entire fortune and will be allowed to return to her family and a normal life. But the Beast seduces her at every turn, exposing, binding, tormenting, and pleasuring Amarantha until she no longer knows her own deepest desires.

Increasingly desperate to break the curse that chains his humanity, the Beast drives Amarantha past every boundary. But her desire for a normal life may jeopardize the love that will save them both.

Yes, it's Super Sexy. Don't feel like you have to read it if this kind of thing is past your own boundaries. In fact, Loose Id includes a little Reader's Warning on there, just so you know what you're getting into.

However, should you wish to read, I know a little secret: I don't see it on the site, but Loose Id's Editor-in-Chief, Treva Harte, recently posted that all July customers at Loose Id will be entered in a drawing to win an iPad.

SQUEE! OMG!!!

The Body Gift

I worked on the novel all weekend.

And it was good.

All day Saturday we sat under the grape arbor. I wrote, David worked on a project for his herb class and Isabel hunted a packrat through the grape vines.

All day, she hunted this rat. At one point, it came crashing through the leaves, hit the ground and dashed over to the massive climbing hydrangea to hide. That was a dramatic moment though. For the most part, her project was as quiet as ours: lots of stalking. The occasional creeping over the vines and wires, pink jellybean toes wrapping for purchase.

She sat in the sun on the adobe wall for so long she had to retreat to our shade and lie there, panting.

And I'm nearly done. I think I have about 25 pages to go. It's been slow-writing as I tie in each plot thread. Much like the beginning of the book, the ending has seemed to require that I immerse. I only wrote about 4,000 words over the weekend, but I was in it for hours all day Saturday and Sunday. When I started back in February, I did the same thing: low wordcount, lots of noodling.

I'm excited to see it come together like this, seeing moments from early in the story bear fruit.

I've decided on a working title: The Body Gift. The ending is confirming that choice, with all kinds of resonance. Of course, I don't delude myself that the title will make it all the way through publication, but I'm happy with it for pitching and querying.

But now: to finish.

Sunsets and Priorities

A sunset photo seems appropriate to end our week. The end, at least, for those of us still working the day jobs.

I feel like the day job ate my brain this week. I'm happy to have this project to work on, and it's interesting, but it's taken a lot of thought and decision-making.

There's that saying "No one pays you to think." Except they actually do. Not always an easy thing to deliver.

So my wordcounts have gone down as the week progressed:

Monday	1808
Tuesday	1647
Wednesday	1503
Thursday	526

Yeah - worked late Wednesday getting something done before a Thursday morning meeting. It shows.

And yes, I hear you all out there telling me to ease back the pressure on myself. I've passed 91K now. My original goal was 90K, but the story has become longer than I thought. It will probably take another 10K or so to finish the story and I'm trying not to rush it.

Actually - it occurs to me writing this that I'm worried the end isn't moving fast enough when the worst thing for me as a reader is a rushed ending. That may be key.

At any rate, I'll work on it this weekend, I think. I had planned to go to the LERA meeting tomorrow and go shopping for clothes for the National convention after, but I've decided to stay home. It's easy to put focus on things like outfits for pitch sessions and costumes for the Steampunk Ball, but the most important thing is this novel I'd like to sell.

Meanwhile my childhood home is officially on the market. If you click on the panoramic link, you can see the tour. (Hey - it's a Friday. What else are you going to do?) My mom and her David have done an amazing job of getting the house ready. It's a lovely house, too, if you know anyone looking in Denver. I walked to elementary school out those back doors and through the park.

The worst thing that ever happened to me was when Chris Rieber stole my tap shoe and dropped it through the ice in the creek.

May the next people to live in that house love it as much as we have all these years.

Follow Me, Up and Down, All the Way, All Around

4th of July was the perfect day, complete with an outdoor pancake breakfast, a parade, margarita snowcones and lots of enjoying life.

We even got a mini-parade in preview, as the parade horses came by our house on the way.

(No, I don't know why I didn't get a better picture than this.)

Here's the beginning of the parade itself, which consisted of ten different emergency vehicles, all very shiny. Sometimes I think our rural area parades serve that purpose, to show off our protective equipment. Not unlike having the army march past, I suppose. All those shiny trucks allow us to have homeowner's insurance and therefore mortgages and therefore homes to live in out here.

All hail the mighty firetruck! Honk! Honk!

My cousin emailed me yesterday with an interesting question about my blog.

(Hi Janie! I will write you back, as well.)

She said:

Can you teach me something please. Why would one sign into a blog? Why do you have members? I read your blog but you would not know it, though I love it. Am I supposed to sign in?

I thought it was worth answering here, because lots of people ask this question, actually. First off, if you don't know what she means, if you look on the right hand side, there's a list of my "Followers." In truth, those fine people follow the blog, not me. Though the idea of a little tribe of followers is appealing. Like that movie (no, I don't remember which one) where the guy hired the band to follow him around and play his theme music.

The first answer is, no, you don't have to sign in. You don't have to "follow." Some bloggers get het up to get people to sign up as followers. They run contests - "all you have to do is follow this blog and comment on this post" - or send messages out on twitter, etc., saying "follow my blog!"

I don't do this.

I love to see new followers, but I find trolling for them kind of distasteful. I believe you all should be free to come and go as you wish. I'm putting this out there. You owe me nothing.

The reason people want followers is to demonstrate a "platform." Theoretically at some point you could show an agent or editor that you have umpty-billion followers and they'd extrapolate that all those people will buy your book. Never mind that you bribed them all to sign up in the first place.

There are two main reasons one would sign on to follow a blog: to show support and for ease of reading.

I follow blogs I like to let the person know that they have my support. Among bloggers, this is common courtesy and people will usually reciprocate follows, though it's far from required.

The other big reason for me is ease of reading. Because I have a Blogger account, I have what they call a dashboard. It pops up and shows me who has posted recently on the blogs I follow. This is a wonderful feature for me. Any of you can set up a blogspot account (www.blogger.com) and use the dashboard. You wouldn't have to create a blog to do it. There are other programs that do this, too, (Google Chrome, maybe?), but I'm not familiar with them. This saves you clicking through all the blogs you like to see if someone has posted recently.

And I do kind of know that you lurkers are out there. I have a counter that follows metrics of visitors to the blog. I can see which days see a lot of visits. It's easy to get obsessed with the metrics, though, so I don't look often.

A lot of you comment to me - on Facebook, Twitter, blog comments, via email or in person. All of those conversations mean a great deal to me.

Once I figure out my theme music, I'll hold auditions.

Swarms and Sobriety

Saturday night over the weekend turned out to be so gorgeous that we scrapped our plans to eat at the delicious-but-no-ambiance Mariscos la Playa and instead drove out to Rancho de Chimayo, to enjoy their lovely patio.

On the way back, they had all highway traffic funneled through a sobriety checkpoint.

My mom and Dave were horrified, because they'd asked my David to drive. We debated whether he should admit to the margarita with dinner. The cops didn't ask, though.

They had cops of every brand on site, including the Tesuque reservation police. Cranes shone down bright spotlights on the stopped traffic in both directions. Our interrogators were downright cheerful, however. Clearly they'd been carefully trained. One cop on David asked to see his license, where we were coming from and oh, was dinner at Chimayo good? Meanwhile another cop talked to me in the passenger seat and my folks in back. She asked if we were having a fun and safe night, even as she shone the flashlight around our feet.

They sent us on with cheery goodbyes. It was kind of surreal.

When we got back to the house, the rains had brought out a swarm of beetles. We had to leap over them to enter the house. Turning off the porch light slowed their frantic activity, but all night we heard them, banging against the screens, like little zombie insects frantic to get in and eat our brainz...

In the morning they were gone. Though I still see one toddling along here and there. A lost remnant of the zombie beetle tribe.

I'll break 90K on Sterling today and I'll be done within the week. This also feels surreal.

I'm pleased to report that my crew has finally arrived at the Midsummer Festival. I'm oddly not enjoying this part so much, because things have gotten very bad. I know it'll get better soon and there will be some triumph to mitigate the disaster, but right now it's very bad for my heroine. And I feel quite close to her.

It's also hard to believe we'll wrap up our time together so soon. I'm tempted to drag it out, even. I know there will be revisions and polishing. Then, perhaps, the sequel. Or another story altogether. I woke up this morning wondering what I'd be writing next. It's probably good that I'm thinking about it, but I also can't quite envision it yet. Which is likely also a good sign.

And then I'll send it to the agent who called it a stellar concept with a cheery goodbye and wait.

Just another step on the road.

Best Laid Plans

In A Fish Called Wanda, Kevin Kline plays the unforgettable character of a thief who is both obsessive and stupid. He smells his own armpits for reassurance of his masculinity; he asks why a family names their daughter, Portia, after a car.

But my favorite line is when, vibrating with angst, he clenches his fists and yells out "Disappointed!"

Yes, after our bad start to Friday and the highly unusual rain storm Thursday night, my folks arrived to a gorgeous afternoon. We prepared everything for our elegant tailgate dinner at the Santa Fe Opera.

And ANOTHER torrential rainstorm came in.

We ended up picnicking indoors. Here you can see a break in the rain, but one cell after another came through, pounding us with unbelievable amounts of water.

We made it to the opera, which is largely covered now. But it continued to storm the whole night. Madame Butterfly sang of too much brightness and springtime, even as violent lightning cracked, thunder undercutting her arias, and blowing rain drenched her from the side. At one point a whirlwind took up the flower petals she'd scattered to welcome her husband's return.

When we left, we had to wade through ankle-deep water in our fancy shoes to get to the car.

But it was still a fun night. Just disappointing not to get to enjoy the evening as planned. The next three evenings were clear, still and gorgeous.

So it goes.

The good news is, Teddy is doing better. The vet says it's kidney disease, which is not surprising in the geriatric kitty. He wants to manage it with decreased protein, which I'm not convinced works for obligate carnivores like cats. We'll see. Meanwhile we're trying some alternative remedies and she's feeling much more like her old self.

I didn't write much over the weekend, but I did relax. Which was good for me.

Now I'm back to it. We'll all settle back into our routine for the next few weeks. Less partying, more producing.

Let the rain fall as it will.

Rainy Days and Sick Days

I'm the kind of person who sees this as an omen.

Even as I know how irrational that is.

These are the shattered remnants of the big ceramic rain catchment that was one of the first things I bought when we moved here. With birthday money.

We had this rain last night, courtesy of Hurricane Alex, who's been demoted to a tropical depression. Torrential rain. I was in the kitchen, making a secret, special, surprise treat for our elegant tailgate dinner at the Santa Fe Opera tonight, when I heard this clatter.

We couldn't figure out what it was, until David checked outside. I think the soil became so saturated that, with overflow pouring over the side, the big vase listed to one side and, like the Titanic, sank onto the patio and shattered.

You can see how one piece of it still rests on the branch I had in there so that critters who climb in for water can climb back out again.

(This does not work for beetles, however, who gleefully drown themselves. I don't know why.)

So, I try not to read in too much. But Teddy is sick today. She was sick yesterday and I thought maybe it was just a bug. But she's still not well today, so I have a call in to the vet. Right now she's sleeping in the sun, which makes her warm and happy.

I have a feeling it might be diabetes.

Teddy will be 15 in October, so I think I should get some more years with her.

Hopefully we can work that out.

Blood and Roses

Finally a cover for Petals and Thorns!

This is my little erotic take on Beauty and the Beast coming out with Loose Id on July 13. The link only takes you to a placeholder right now. I almost waited to post the cover until people can at least pre-order and then I thought, hey, I can't not post the cover as soon as I get it.

I think they did a great job. I love that you can see the Beast's claws and that the artist, Cris Griffin, took my suggestion of a bloody rose. It works out especially well because Robin of Robin Ludwig Design made me business cards with a very similar image (ah, the consistent world of stock photography). She also adapted it for me to make a third "doorway" on my website for the erotica stuff.

Yeah, yeah, yeah - I'll get that up any day now, here.

And if any of you are wanting a high resolution image of the cover, I'll put it there. Blood and roses. Flowers seem to be a big part of my life lately. I'm not sure what that's about.

Full bloom days.

Oxygen Masks

The cholla are both flowering and fruiting now - a brilliant combination of yellow and this purple-pink that can look scarlet from a distance.

Quite the show.

Last night Kerry and I were talking about how making progress on the writing can make or break your day. I know I've mentioned this before, but it can be astonishing how much of a difference getting the writing in can make.

She had slunk home from a grueling day at work. Her job involves people in crisis, so it's more emotionally demanding than, say, mine. She said she was in a mood of deepest blue, but had to try to work on her revisions anyway. I gave her the virtual pep talk and she disappeared for a while.

When she came back a bit later, having hit her page goal, her mood had entirely shifted. Everything suddenly looked better. She felt ready to go spend time with family who needed her emotional support.

"I use the analogy with my patients of the airplane, where you put on your own oxygen mask before assisting another," she told me.

Sometimes I think this is mainly true of writers. I also saw this guest blog post by D.J. Morel yesterday. (This is a bit of a departure for the Pimp My Novel blog, which is usually about the marketing end of publishing and well worth following. Clearly I liked this guest post, too.) He talks about choosing the day job that allows you to write. This line struck me:

When I realized that I was screaming at the walls of my house for a half hour after coming home each night, I knew it was enough. I quit, and didn't come to understand how unhappy it all had made me until many months down the road. If you are indeed a writer, you can run away from writing, but it'll only come and find you.

But one of my favorite quotes for a very long time now is this one by Mark Rutherford:

There is in each of us an upwelling spring of life, energy, love, whatever you like to call it. If a course is not cut for it, it turns the ground around it into a swamp.

(It turns out I quoted this before on the blog, but it was back in January '09, so I hope you'll forgive me the repeat.)

He very carefully does not ascribe this phenomenon only to writers, though he was a novelist. I suspect we all have this, the upwelling spring that keeps us alive, engaged and vital. The Buddhists say each of us has one thing that we do better than anyone else in existence and that life is a journey to discover what that is.

Unfortunately it's all too easy not to cut a course for the upwelling spring. Daily life piles up, gradually blocking the way. Often we don't notice until there's a flood and we're standing in a boggy mess as far as the eye can see.

What to do then?

Put on your oxygen mask and take a deep breath. The rest will sort itself out.

I couldn't decide today between earth and sky, so you get both. Shades of blue.


If I haven't mentioned, writing fiction is really fun.

(Well, except when it's miserable, but that's a whole other set of issues.)

Really I mean that writing fiction is fun compared to nonfiction. I started out as an essayist because that kind of voice came naturally to me. And there's satisfaction in telling those kinds of stories. True stories about life and people, the things we experience. Once this new novel is complete, I might spend a little time writing or revising some essays, just to get my hand in again.

Then again, I might not. Because writing fiction is really run.

It's fun like reading is fun. You know that feeling you get, when you're reading a book you love, and your mind is sunk in that story, that world, that voice? I get that writing fiction. When its going right, my mind returns to the story and the characters over and over through the day and I would absolutely stay up all night to finish reading it.

If only I'd finished writing it, that is.

It's an odd sensation, because that aspect of writing feels more like self-love, like navel-gazing, than any other. Like I'm so in love with the sound of my own voice that I want to listen to it all the time. Perhaps this is why so many writers like to ascribe their inspiration to muses or other outside storytellers.

"It's not me, I just write down the story as it comes to me."

Loving Calliope or Erato feels more wholesome than loving the sound of one's own voice. Besides, as we all know, that way leads to insanity for writers. Ego is the eternal danger.

Amusingly, the last time I used the "insanity" label on this blog, I accidentally typed my heroine's name when I logged in that morning, instead of my password. Which is exactly what I did today.

At least I'm consistent in the way my thoughts run?

Just so long as it's not a foolish consistency, which leads to hobgoblins and all manner of obnoxious creatures. I'm pretty sure hobgoblins are not the new zombies, which were the new angels, which were the new vampires.

I know, it's hard to keep up.

Yvonne's Lover

Isabel outside my office window again, this time having a stand-off with a bunny who came up to nibble on bird leavings.

She loves to watch the rabbits, but isn't entirely sure what they are. They look like prey. Awfully big prey.

They stared at each other, motionless, for easily ten minutes. Then the bunny hopped away again.

We went to a little neighborhood party yesterday afternoon. Part social, part neighborhood watch. This gal who's originally from the east coast organizes it for the whole community. It's a funny thing to me because she's methodical and deliberate about creating what to me is a natural relationship. Meet your neighbors, she says. Get to know them. Be friendly.

Um, okay.

We lived in a small town for 20 years. She asked me if we had neighborhood watch programs. I said no, we were just all in each others' faces all the time.

The other day, on our morning run, we saw an odd car parked on the road in front of Dick & Yvonne's mailbox. Nobody parks on the roads here. The driveways are long, often with circular elements, so people pull into each others' driveways. Then there was the placement of the car - smack dab in front of the mailbox. So, when we got home, I emailed our neighborhood watch block captain with the description and plate, just in case it was "bad actors" in neighborhood watch lingo and not just an inconsiderate guest.

There is a pattern of break-ins here. Almost always between 8 and Noon on weekdays. Apparently thieves park and watch people leave for work and slip in. They always take the same things: flat-screen TVs, jewelry, guns, laptops. So we're suppose to watch for unusual vehicles in the neighborhood.

Our block captain passed it along. I considered my duty, if slightly paranoid, done.

But no.

At the meeting, this gal castigates me for not doing more.

Did you call Yvonne? she asks.

No, I did not, because it was 6:30 in the morning, I say.

You should have called the police and Yvonne, she says. For all you know she was being burgled right then.

Yvonne, who is easily in her mid-eighties calls out, Jeffe - I'm glad you didn't call, because that was my lover and I wouldn't have wanted Dick to find out.

She's a hoot.

Later she asks me more about it - nothing happened, but they also didn't know - and I tell her it was a fairly decrepit vehicle and that she needs to upgrade in lovers, if that's the case.

She thinks it was likely a young guy they have doing the yard work now, which is what David and I had speculated. We'd see the young guy out in front with Dick, working on the yard.

He's the live-in boyfriend, Yvonne says, of the daughter half of the mother/daughter team who cleans her house. They all make $25 an hour, but are very sweet and a giggly bunch, Yvonne says. Expensive, she says, but worth it. They just can't do everything around the house by themselves any more. Having help keeps them living out here.

That $300 a month keeps them out of the retirement home, she says.

She and Dick just finished designing and painting a set for a new production at the children's theater. She figures if they moved to a retirement home, they wouldn't do that kind of thing any more.

Next time, she says, go ahead and call at 6:30. She can always find a new lover.

And Also Patience, Play and Naps

I spotted this blossoming prickly pear by accident.

I happened to look down from the bedroom window and the spot of butter yellow caught my eye. It was blooming away under a bushel, or rather, a sagebrush. It took a bit of clearing to get the photo. Now I feel like I need a special path around to the back of the house, so people can be sure to see it.

But, seen or not, appreciated or ignored, it blooms anyway.

A number of people commented on yesterday's post. Tara Lain told a great story about koi and cats and suggested we add the word "patient."

And, in the infinitely frustrating world of blog commenting, Kerry tried to comment, but was denied. She wanted to remind me that cats also know when to play silly games and when to take a nap.

That might seem self-evident, but it's easy to forget.

So as we finish out our Fridays, it's good to revisit what weekends are about. For many of us, the weekends are full of tasks. I know my To-Do List is long. I try to do laundry every-other weekend and clean the house on the intervening weekends. Last weekend, though, I was gone, so now I have three weeks of laundry to catch up on the same weekend as house-cleaning. We have guests coming next weekend, so there's no fudging that part. The garden is crying for attention. I have some publicity stuff to do for Petals & Thorns, coming out July 13.

And about 35K to write on the novel.

No, no, no - I know I won't do that. But it does hover pretty high on my mental To-Do list.

The things that don't end up on the list? Games, naps, nonsense. Even if we don't work corporate jobs, our families and friends often do. Weekends should be for play, too, not just catching up.

Or running in place.

Or bailing the sinking boat.

Wherever you might be with stuff.

Here's hoping you get to do something silly, catnip optional, and that you indulge in a nice nap.

I'm adding them to my list.

Vigil

This is Isabel outside my office window, watching the Bewick's wren nest.

I originally thought it was a house wren, but the song and behavior has me now convinced that it's a Bewick's wren. Apparently they're easily confused. And, sadly, the house wrens are driving out the Bewick's wrens, so much so that they're pretty much gone from the eastern half of the country.

The males go around building several nests in cavities, like inside the cow skull on our front porch, and the female chooses her favorite. Our male worked away to build the nest and sings his heart out. But I'm not convinced he has found a mate, much less that there's anything going on in that nest.

Isabel, however, is certain there is.

She spends her days watching that nest. With unwavering intensity. She never tires of it. It's the same method she employs to catch mice or lizards. They hide and she sits and waits. For hours. Until they finally come out and she catches them.

Part of the reason felines sleep so much is because they're such efficient hunters that they can. Among all predators, cats spend the least amount of time actively hunting. Part of this though, is that persistence. They never forget or lose interest. Isabel's been watching that nest for two weeks now without much reward. If there ever are chicks, I'll have to keep her inside, because she won't rest until she gets them.

Writers talk about persistence all the time. Persistence to finish the book in the first place, to see it through the tough spots, in the face of ongoing rejection, to write the next book even as everyone apparently hates the one you're trying to shop. People throw around phrases like "thick skin" and "hanging on to your dream" and "never give up," which all sounds so grueling.

I wonder if it shouldn't be more like a cat hunting. Work on it every day, never lose interest, always check the nest. For Isabel, watching the nest is just as fun as finding something in it.

For her, it's not grueling. It's just what she does.

Blooming Right Along

The cholla are fulfilling their early promise and have burst into full bloom.

Some cholla more than others, which I never quite understand. It's the same with our desert four o'clocks out front. Ours are big and lush, but haven't bloomed while smaller (and larger) clumps unattended out in the desert are blooming away. There's almost certainly a reason, but I don't know it. In my solipsistic universe, that's pretty much the same thing.

In a similarly random bit of selection, my photos are up on the contest site, but one didn't make it, oddly enough. I'm to give them 48 hours, then we'll see.

I'm confessing right now: I didn't end up using any of the ones suggested to me, though they were all in the pot. I started out with over 30 finalists and culled down to 12. I didn't use the cholla blossom, because there are so many other similar and better photos. I didn't use the Isabel at the horse trough because it wasn't signature New Mexico scenery. I doubt I'll come close to winning anything, especially because I have no intention of asking anyone to vote. I really hate the trolling for votes thing. Soon it will cease to be the thing - can't wait for that day. Swing, pendulum, swing!

Sterling is coming right along. I think I have a real working title now, though I might run it through a few more people. I have one no vote and several enthusiastic yeses so far. I'm reliably hitting 1.5K now. A bit of rest always helps build endurance.

Love these full-bloom days.

Solstice Calendar

Yesterday was Summer Solstice.

The longest day of the year, somehow both Midsummer and First Day of Summer. Thus do science and tradition collide.

For the last couple of days, the setting sun has come squarely in our western bedroom window and cast long rays right on the fireplace screen on the living room kiva. Our own Solstice calendar it seems.

Our builder was Norwegian and I wonder if he aligned it that way on purpose.

The new novel, Sterling, has been hurtling towards a Midsummer Solstice festival since the beginning. Maybe hurtling is the wrong word. Creeping slowly towards. Reluctantly, but with fascination. Now my own reality has gone past the moment in the book. Which should mean nothing, except I can't quite shake the feeling that I'm having to catch up now.

I worried about not writing while I was at my mom's. I knew I wouldn't get to and I thought the hiatus might knock me out of my rhythm. Instead, it turned out to be a good break. I wrote yesterday with a sense of the well being full and cool. It helped that I had hours of driving while David studied, to mull over the plot. I know now the sequence of remaining events. Though I woke up this morning realizing I hadn't accounted for one plot thread.

It's in my head now, though.

I passed 70K yesterday, which means I'm between about 60% and 80% done. By my feel of the story left to write, I think it's closer to the 60% end, but we'll see, won't we? I'll know the end when I get there.

It's always tempting to see Summer Solstice and 4th of July weekend as the Summer being half over. Which is funny because most of us in the US anyway think of Summer as June, July and August - partly due to growing season, partly due to school calendars. By that measure, Solstice is neither the beginning of Summer, nor the middle, but somewhere just shy of the first third.

Demarcations and divisions to measure the progress of the year.

Remnants and Goodbyes

All in all, it wasn't so bad.

My mom and I went through everything and decided on keep, save or store. She'd already culled quite a bit, which made it all easier. We purged all of Leo's things years ago, after he died. Then more when my mom married her David and she made space for him to move in.

The hardest part was the jewelry. For both of us.

For every pair of earrings, for every ring and necklace, there was a story and a memory. Who gave it whom on what occasion. Some pieces were from the 60s, gifts from my dad. Some had belonged to my grandmother. We ruthlessly categorized - some I took, some she's keeping, some goes to be appraised and sold, some for my aunt to look through.

The jewelry is when we cried.

But at least we got to do this together.

My mom and I have had a long-standing joke, whenever she brought home a great new piece of art and I said I liked it, she'd answer "good, because it will be yours someday." Sometimes it gave me a thrill, thinking of the day I'd get to have that painting or sculpture. Until I remembered that would mean my mom would be gone.

I walked myself through it from time to time. How she'd have passed away and weeks later I'd go through the house and decide what to keep or sell.

I never could get myself through it.

Now I don't have to. I brought home some of my favorite things now, the ones that won't work in the Tucson house. Others I'll take after the house sells. It feels good to have everything accounted for.

I'm giving my old dollhouse to Lauren, for our granddaughter to be born in October. The carpet above were pieces I'd cut for the dollhouse and carefully stored. Yes, they were remnants from our own house. The yellow was in my bedroom, the tile in the kitchen and the green throughout the rest.
My mom wants you all to know that she had that carpet out of there by the 80s. We were just stunned at how bright it is. Didn't seem like it at the time.

I'm also lucky that way. I have friends whose parents never did redecorate since the 70s. One mother had a house with a different color for every room: purple living room, red rec room, green kitchen, yellow bedroom - and didn't want to change a thing to sell it.
It turned out to be a pleasant weekend. We got a great deal accomplished and spent some time together on the patio, where we spent so many family occasions.

The twinsie shirts, by the way, were a coincidence, but I think we shouldn't let them live it down.

Over the River and Through the Woods

Turns out cholla do more than produce burrs.

This photo might seem silly soon, because when I foraged out to get a photo of this rare blossom, I saw that the entire cholla is covered in buds. So there might be photos of cholla in full bloom soon.

But for now, this is the first, and therefore special.

I'm off to Denver today, to my mom's house, to help clean it out for the Big Sell. She and her David have been crazy busy fixing the place up to put it on the market at the beginning of July. Stepfather David instructed me to bring the biggest car we own. Or to borrow a bigger one. He's big on getting rid of stuff.

Most will go into storage right now, until my mom buys a "little jewel box of a condo" to house her art. That's the most important part.

People are predicting that this will be emotional, but I think we're ready. It helps that my David and I purged last year when we moved. The house was the first my mom bought, and therefore special, but it's not the last.

And it's time to let it go.

A Thousand Words

The desert four o'clocks are in full bloom, lighting up the landscape with their intense purple.

Turns out that the New Mexico Tourism Department is running a photo contest. I think I'll enter, just for kicks. (No, not with this photo.) I can enter five, so if any of you have opinions on the pics you like best, let me know! I put all my best photos on the blog here, so I'll likely pick from those.

I don't expect you to troll through the entire blog archive, unless you're really excited to to it. The New Mexico photos start almost exactly one year ago, which is a serendipitous coincidence, with I'm Just Wild About Harry in June 2009.

After that week, you'd have to skip into July, for the house-hunting trip beginning with Our Eight Lovely Finalists (which are only pictures of houses). Then it's to August and Dances with Quail.

Yeah, I got sucked into reading those old posts. Such with the navel-gazing.

You'd be well-advised just to look through the photos. Or not. BUT, if someone suggests a photo and it wins anything, I'll give you a prize. A gift-certificate to Ten Thousand Waves or to the indie bookstore of your choice.

See? It's not always about writing.

Although, I can't help but notice that the saying is that a picture is worth a thousand words, and I write at least a thousand words a day. That means one photograph is the same as writing my 1K?

Yeah, not so much.

We need to reevaluate that saying.

Write Fatgirl Write!

So, I might have overtrained.

Yesterday I crashed a bit. I could tell when I started that I wasn't up to par. Some days I can just feel it, that the words aren't going to flow.

I don't want it to be a self-fulfilling prophecy, so I make myself write anyway. But I'm not sure that's best.

For some reason, Tuesdays are often like that for me. I'm kind of considering taking Tuesdays off from writing, if they're all going to turn out like that.

I didn't make my 1.85 K. I wrote 1270 new words and deleted a whole bunch of stuff. Frogging again. I kind of hit a blind pocket in the story and, in brainstorming with KAK, realized I had to go back and redirect an earlier scene, which meant deleting an entire scene that now never occurs.

The upshot is I ended up 200 words down. Alas.

Now I have to stop there and acknowledge that writing 1270 new words is really good. A step up from my 1K. So not bad for a "bad" day.

Elizabeth Ryann asked me in the comments yesterday if it helps that I have a definite time to stop writing, because I switch to the day job and I cavalierly said yes. Which is true, it normally does.

However, yesterday was such a grueling day with so little accomplished, that I had Sterling up on my personal laptop for most of the day, trying to add a little more when time allowed, trying to hit that finish line.

Finally I realized I was doing the equivalent of Simon Pegg in Run Fatboy Run, dragging myself along in the middle of the night, long after the marathon has ended.

There's something to be said for pushing yourself, for holding yourself accountable to meet the goal. But there's also a time to realize that you're only exhausting yourself.

And likely only putting down words that will have to be deleted anyway.

So, I'm still going for my 1.85K each day. But I'm holding myself to my stop time. If I'm feeling it and I need to, I might do another hour or so at the end of the day.

Feel the burn!

Creative Conditioning

The moon and Venus last night, from our bedroom window, with the lights of Santa Fe below.

Not perfectly crisp, but close.

I'm feeling creaky today. On Sunday I engaged in a major weed-pulling effort. I reaped the reward of all the laziness I sowed the last few weekends, which means it took me a few hours. Of bending and pulling. Only a little sore in my muscles yesterday, I didn't give it another thought.

Today I'm feeling it.

In college, I briefly dated a ballet dancer. Beautiful body, but unfortunately quite wooden in bed. At any rate, he told me that they'd learned that it takes a full night and day before you feel the physiological effects of something. So he'd feel a grueling dance workout, not the next morning, but the following one. Same for eating heavily or lightly. It's an interesting tidbit of information, but it probably says something that that's what I remember best about him...

Yesterday, my 1.85 K was more difficult than Sunday's.

Sometimes I think writing can be like working out. On a given day, it's not hard to stretch yourself and go the extra mile, do a bunch of yardwork, add some weight to the machine. You might not even really feel it the next morning. But after two days of it, I'm feeling a little tired in my brain. It doesn't make sense to me that I'd have only so much writing energy, but I keep running up against that.

It would probably make more sense to gradually add words, like I gradually increase the weight I lift or the distance I run. Mental conditioning, as it were. Or Creative Conditioning. An extra 50 words a day and soon I'm staying up all night writing Interview with the Vampire in less than a week.

(Though I'm fairly convinced cocaine was heavily involved in that particular effort.)

So, here I am, warming up, stretching my muscles. Bouncing up and down a little to juice up those ligaments.

It will feel good when I'm done.

A Single Step.

These yellow columbine are growing with crazed bushiness right now. I'm thinking I need to plant some rose bushes behind them, in the corner just there.

Pink ones.

Maybe a climber with a trellis. I still haven't put up any of the trellises I brought from the old house. Now I must be more ready to deal because I'm thinking about them and about climbing roses.

You know I'm big on the one-step-at-a-time thing. I can't deal with everything at once, but I can get things set up one by one.

The journey of 10,000 miles and all that.

This weekend I went to the LERA meeting (Land of Enchantment Romance Authors) and Gabi Stevens confessed immediately "I always read your blog, but I never comment. I feel really bad about it."

Which made me laugh. (Hi Gabi!)

And, of course, I told her there's absolutely no onus to comment. It's always fun to get comments, but I must admit, one of my blog-reading peeves are posts that are clearly set up only to elicit comments. You know the ones, little more than a remark and a question. To me, that's less like writing and more like soliciting.

Gabi, whose first book, The Wish List, came out from Tor in May, with two more to follow (I know - sweet deal), said well, yes, but she's trying to get better at the social media thing and she knows commenting is part of that and that's her next step.

Fair enough.

(I offered to help her figure it out, so let's see if she comments with a link to her site. If not, we need to nag her.)

I returned from the meeting feeling fired up to finish Sterling, which is all one can really ask for from a writers meeting. Matt McDuffie, who teaches screenwriting at University of New Mexico, and apparently has little internet presence, gave an energizing presentation on story structure. Nothing I didn't know before, but still stimulating. Listening to him talk, I could trace my story with it and feel where the next steps are going. I know I'm coming up on the crisis, the Act II climax, though it's taking a bit longer to get there than I thought. The way it's looking now, what I thought would be a 90K book looks like it'll come out around 113K, which is fine. I'm on track for that.

Which is good, because KAK came back from her meeting (lots of RWA groups meet on the second Saturday of the month - kind of an odd synchronicity), where Bob Mayer, who does the whole warrior-writer thing and has and exhaustive internet presence, got her fired up about accountability and goals.

And it turns out he's a fan of spreadsheets, too. So there.

So between KAK wanting to synchronize our goals and my screenwriting induced re-evaluation of my story arc, I discovered I had to up my daily wordcount goal if I'm going to make it by mid-July.

So no more 1K/day. I'm upping to 1850/day. I made it yesterday, pretty easily. We'll see if I can sustain it during the work week, too. The story is moving faster now, so that helps. Less time staring at the screen wondering what happens next. If I'm writing well, I can write about 1K/hour, so this should be doable.

One day at a time.

Creepy

She grabbed the microphone back and started clarifying that she really, really, really is a brand and brands are awesome . . . and the more she went on, the more I thought: I am not a brand. I wanted to whisper it, but that would have been creepy.

That quote is from Maureen Johnson's most excellent blog post on how she feels about social media.

She says something I've tried to say several times here, only she says it far better. If I could get away with it, I'd just post what she says here and point at it. So, that's essentially what I'm doing. I'm assuming you all clicked and went to read it already.

Though I confess my favorite part is when she wants to whisper to herself that she's not a brand, but decides it would be creepy.

The interwebs have their decidedly creepy aspect. People behave in odd ways, act aggressive or just plain nutty sometimes. Enough so that I've researched a few to try to determine if they're really as nutty as they seem or if it's a communication issue. That said, I've met far more really great people, some of whom I've gone on to meet in person. Which is really the point of the whole social media thing.

I confess I started using both Facebook and Twitter to pimp my blog. I know, I know - but if I was going to write the damn thing, I wanted someone besides my mother to read it and that seemed to be the way to go. It worked, too. But, to my surprise, I found I really enjoy the communities I'm now part of. There are people I talk to every day and who miss me when I'm gone - which is always comforting in a someone-will-find-me-before-the-pets-totally-consume-my-body kind of way.

But Maureen is dead-on about the shysters, the shills, the snake-oil salesmen. One author I unfollowed after less than a day because he tweeted, in all caps, to buy his book, every hour, all day long.

No no no.

It's no fun to be friends with a brand. That's what it comes down to, really. I might like Burt's Bees, and expect a certain quality in the products that pleases me with its consistency and nice scents, but I don't expect to interact with my Beeswax Lip Balm. Beyond keeping my lips kissable, of course.

Authors are different. When we love their books, we want to talk to the people who wrote them. We have this odd tendency to feel like they're friends because we spent time wrapped in their view of the world. And man authors - certainly not all - like to interact with their readers because, well, otherwise we never really get to be part of that experience.

Storytelling is intimate. Personal. It's not like selling lip balm.

I am not a brand, she whispered quietly to herself.

The Living Is Easy

Our neighbors have two tween girls, who are on school break now.

Though our houses have a good distance between them, I can hear the girls play the radio on these hot summer days. I don't mind it a bit. I think they must be sunbathing on their walled patio. From time to time, I hear their happy voices in counterpoint to the pop songs and boomingly enthusiastic DJs.

I remember that time, spent mostly at the neighborhood pool. We slathered on tanning oils and watched the older girls, relaying to each other the stories we'd heard of who those girls were tanning for. We had this pervasive sense of preparation. That if we groomed ourselves enough our lives would begin and all the excitement bubbling inside of us would have somewhere to go.

The days then lasted forever, though summer was always over before we knew it.

Some of that feeling returns to me, hearing the neighbor girls' radio. I sit at my desk, reviewing comments on EPA's proposed Geologic Sequestration Rule and time stretches out, becomes languid. Hot summer air pours in the window.

Happiness can be such a simple thing.

House Woman

No, I didn't take that picture. I wish!

I pulled it from here and I'm hoping no one will mind. Once I snap a picture of our own little house wren, I'll swap it out.

He or she - apparently the males and females look much the same - has been busily building a nest inside the cow skull hanging outside our front door. She goes in the top, (we'll just decide it's a she), through the cannula where the spinal cord would exit and has stuff the brain cavity with hair, grass and bits of floss pulled from the seams of the patio chair cushions.

Pretty styling actually.

At first I thought this was a bad idea. Disaster waiting to happen. But it turns out she knows what she's doing. House wrens will steal other birds' nests. She's tiny, but she's aggressive. She doesn't mind us coming and going and she tells Isabel off if she gets too close.

I like a bird who takes care of herself.

I finished and sent in my line edits for Petals and Thorns last night. That was the third and final editing pass. Publication date is July 13, if I haven't mentioned. When we first discussed the editing process, I made a joke to my Loose Id editor that it was amusing to me to contemplate editing on a BDSM novella. Like, would the hero's motivation be to tie her hands with rope at this point or would he use cuffs?

I thought it was funny.

But no. She didn't even bite. So I mentioned it to Allison, who didn't get why I thought it was funny, either. Now I know why. That's exactly what the editing process was like. Was it one breast or both, which means it should be plural. If he's busy with the one hand then he's only holding one shoulder so he can't release her shoulders. I swear - even UNM Press and Redbook didn't line edit this exhaustively.

Or maybe that's the beauty of getting galley proofs instead of a document marked with track changes. I miss my blissful ignorance.

Amusingly, many of the commas my content editor inserted, the copy editor removed. Comma placement comes down to a matter of opinion most of the time. Some people have very strong opinions on the topic. Me? Not so much.

At any rate, there I am, working my little tasks while the wren works outside my window. Bit by bit, adding to our creations.

Maybe I'm styling, too.

One-Eye Blind

I didn't notice, until I went to take this photo of the pretty flowers, that St. Francis is now blind in one eye.

Apparently some sort of insect has built a cocoon or egg sack in the cavity and sealed it over. I can't decide if St. Francis' love of all animals extends to insects. You don't really see him depicted with, say, a preying mantis on an outstretched arm. Still, life is life and I'm inclined to let whatever it is develop as it will.

That tends to be my philosophy on most everything. And not just because I'm lazy.

I think that's why Taoism fits me well: just let it flow, swim with the tide, ride that wave into the shore.

It's how I write, too. I usually have just a general idea of what happens, but not exactly. For example, right now my characters are visiting this sacred altar. I knew it wouldn't be easy to get to, being secret and sacred and all, but I wasn't sure what the tricks and traps would be. I found out as my characters went along. Now that they're there, I'm not sure exactly who or what occupies the altar. It hasn't jumped out yet, either, which gets kind of frustrating.

I'm really not sure what I think about this kind of thing. Robin McKinley, who I just love, and who writes this nearly incoherent, stream-of-consciousness blog that I can only sometimes bear to read, writes here about why there's no sequel to Sunshine, a book well-loved and which clearly ended begging for a sequel. She does the thing some authors do, saying that the stories come to her and she can't make it happen. Other authors talk about their characters talking to them. The pre-plotters brainstorm it all out ahead of time and then, depending on their technique, either write it exactly that way or let the story wind around that structure.

I don't know if I believe in the "stories are given to me thing," though it fits within my Taoist inclinations. I don't know that I think it all up myself, either.

I do know that the answers don't come to me unless I'm writing what's happening to the characters. Or letting the scene play in my head - that sometimes works. I think sometimes that it's a combination of both, like most things. I point the imagining part of my brain in a particular direction and let it run. The neurons pull the energy from wherever they do and spin the story. Part of me can see it and part is blind.

Quite remarkable really.

Simmering

This weekend was hot.

Santa Fe broke the record high on Saturday by hitting 100. So, yeah, not so bad. And it's a dry heat. Believe me - I lived in St. Louis for a while. Lack of humidity makes all the difference in the world.

We have nice cross-currents for air flow in our house and ceiling fans, so we never felt like we had to turn on the air conditioning. But we stayed pretty still. Even Isabel stayed inside. She's gone from being the toddler-cat who has to be dragged in from playing, kicking and screaming, then immediately falling asleep, to teenager-cat. Friday night she spent the entire hot, still night in the garage hunting mice. Then on Saturday morning she slept in, got up to eat breakfast and went back to her kitty condo - the cat equivalent of partying all night and watching TV in the darkened den all day.

Then this storm rolled in, creating a dramatic sunset and dropping cooling rain. All of us parched people, animals and plants drank it gratefully.

I'm making steady progress on Sterling. Allison called me "quietly enthusiastic" about it. I said that's because I'm trying not to be obnoxious. I never thought I'd be one to agree with the write-every-day thing. When I was first working at being a writer and attending every workshop I could, almost every singled writer gave that advice.

Write every day.

Write at the same time every day.

Some would shrug, apologize and say they knew it wasn't easy, but that it was the only thing that worked for them.

I felt like that was impossible for me. At the time I was finishing my graduate thesis, working full time and taking and teaching martial arts classes most nights of the week. Even if I wrote every day, it couldn't possibly be at the same time, because every day was different.

So I wrote when I could. Usually in sporadic chunks. I was writing essays then, so I could write an entire essay over the course of a few hours and that worked for me. My first publications came out of that time and my first book. We'd have to agree that worked just fine.

But other things still took precedence. Even gardening and quilting tended to edge out writing time. I would bemoan my lack of writing time, but there it was.

All that changed when I went to writing novels. Obviously I couldn't bang out a novel in a few hours. I found I had to work incrementally, building the story piece by piece over the course of months, holding the ideas in my head over that time.

It took me nine months to write Obsidian. No, I didn't work on it every day. I had several long stretches where I worked on it only a little or not at all. Sterling will take five months. And I've really only hit the smooth rhythm in the last two months.

But I do have to write every day. At pretty much the same time. Shockingly enough, it works. That approach also requires that the writing time is my core schedule and I work everything else in around that, even the day job (unless I just can't make that happen, which can occur).

Some people draft faster, then revise. For me, when I'm done by mid-July, the novel will be reasonably polished.

And I keep thinking that it might be really good.

Which is this lovely bubbling feeling.

My quietly enthusiastic.

Lucky

My mom is getting ready to sell her house.

This is the one she bought in 1972, just before my sixth birthday. She married my stepfather, Leo, a year later and they lived there until he died a few years ago.

When she remarried, my new stepfather sold his house in Denver and bought a house in Tucson. They've been dividing their time between my mom's house in Denver for the summer and his house in Tucson for the winter.

Only the "winter" in Tucson has grown to be eight months or longer. And she just doesn't enjoy her time in the Denver house anymore. It's become a kind of museum of our family and not a living home. Also, the house is getting older and being left unmaintained for eight months at a time is too hard on it, especially during Colorado winters.

So, when my mom and Dave passed through here a few weeks ago on their annual migration north, and I could see how much she was dreading facing the house, I told her that, if my vote counted, that I'm fine with her selling the house.

I don't think my vote should count, but she knows I have issues. Or did. I used to dream that she sold the house without telling me and I would come home to an empty shell. This is probably due to my dad dying when I was young and I had other issues about trying to hold onto stuff. But I've gotten much better about this kind of thing, as I mentioned the other day. Elizabeth Ryann commented that it's like building a muscle - an image I just love.

So, the other day my mom updated me on the work they're doing to fix up the house to sell and she mentioned that the park light on the front walk is gone now. It was broken and couldn't be fixed. And it's a bit funky for a house sale. I think she and Leo bought it in Taos or Santa Fe when they took out the old park lights and replaced them with new.

I was a bit taken aback - so much for my brave, deleting phase, and my mom replied "I know. I'm trying not to think about it." So, I really did try not to write about it, I did, but I just had to.

Especially because I was telling David about it and how my mom thought we'd wired up the one broken arm at some point, which I don't remember doing. He doesn't either. But, it turns out, he has NO idea what light I'm talking about.

"The 12-foot tall iron lamp you have to pass to walk in the front door?" I say "With the four big arms with globes and another on top? The one that's been there for 35 years and has formed the backdrop for 27,000 family photos??"

I might have been growing a bit shrill at this point, because he ducked his way out of the conversation. I might have sulked a little bit.

I've reached the midpoint of Sterling and I'm working at building the romance between the hero and heroine. Actually, I've been building it and now I want some delivery from them. One of the classic ways to show that their love is real and true is for the man to understand things about the woman that no one else does. He would, for example, know how she felt about the freaking park light on the front walk of her childhood home.

But real love doesn't work that way and I know it.

Come January, David and I will have been together for twenty years. He does understand things about me. And when we go up to Denver, he'll almost certainly remember that conversation and look at where the park light was and say something like "Oh, that light! I just didn't know what you meant by 'park light.'"

See? I know him, too.

I think the real love is in him letting me get a little shrill and sulky and letting it go. I suspect he knows this won't be the last of the upheaval until the house is sold. There will be much deciding in the coming weeks of what to keep and what to let go of.

I know I can trust him to be by my side through all of it.

That's the really difficult part to capture in a novel. I'm lucky to have it in real life.