Category Archives: Uncategorized

Okay, I didn’t have any champagne. I was driving. I did have a little Pinot Grigio, though, and it was excellent. And the chocolate…. Oh, my.

Last night was the Houston Bay Area Chapter of RWA’s Bookseller Reception at The Chocolate Bar in the Montrose area of Houston. And my-oh-my, the chocolate was everywhere! They had chocolate ice cream, chocolate cookies, chocolate cakes, chocolate cheesecakes and tortes and flan and pie and… Well, pretty much anything you could think of that can be made out of chocolate– they had it.

I drove up from the island and picked up Dawn Temple (who’s had a couple of books out from Silhouette Special Edition), Anne Marie Novark (who writes for Wild Rose Press) and Liz Webb, and Liz gave me directions to The Chocolate Bar so I didn’t get lost, though it did feel a little squeezy maneuvering my big bus down those narrow streets. They weren’t any narrower than Galveston streets, though, so I don’t know why I felt squeezed… Maybe because there was even less parking… We carried all our stuff inside, then visited until the booksellers got off work and showed up.

One of them, Dana from the Barnes & Noble at Champions (I’m not real sure where that is, but it’s on the other side of Houston from me) pulled My Book–New Blood–out of her purse and asked me to sign it. That really made me feel good. Like, totally wowed! And most of the others knew of my books, which also made me happy.

I got a piece of Miss Etta’s chocolate cake. This was not any ordinary chocolate cake–though it had all the best things about chocolate cake going for it. It was moist and chocolatey and had gooey, shiny icing, and four (4!) layers, and cocoa dusted over the outside icing (up the side). It was a Huge piece of cake. I managed to eat about a third of it, and had to take a break. I think I ate 3 more bites, the rest of the evening. I also drank two bottles of water and a diet Coke. (I know. Eat huge amounts of chocolate cake, and drink diet soda… But chocolate takes longer to digest than corn syrup.) Anyway, it was fun, I had some Really good cake, and met some cool people.

So–there’s what I have to say today.

They rearranged desks at the newspaper today. I now have a window view.

There’s spider webs and salt crud all over the window, as well as some unsightly bird-poop splatters, and my view is of a drainage ditch with Hurricane Ike debris still in it, with a billboard and the freeway beyond that (there are some fairly nice trees and palmettos in the ditch…), but hey, it’s a window!

The editor I work with most closely wanted our desks closer together, so we wouldn’t be hollering at each other halfway across the cavern that is the newsroom, and wanted more natural light, so he got us moved near the window. He’s got his back to it, I face it, which is actually rather nice. And I got a new non-sticking keyboard, and a mouse with a wheel, so I’m all to the good now.

I was having a real struggle with the book last week. Didn’t write for three days, even though I knew I needed to. Because I got stuck. I got my characters into something, and had no idea how they were going to get out of it. So finally, I called my friend and CP in Waco and talked through the issue, and got 10 pages written last week, and 6 more so far this week, which isn’t great, but… It’s still chugging along.

There really isn’t much to blog about–I had a lazy weekend. Read a lot of books. I’m really loving my Sony reader, because I can read lots of books and not have them pile up on my floor. It’s great!

Here it is, Monday again. I thought about posting a blog a couple of times last week, but alas, never did. If I think about it again this week, and I’m near/on a computer, I’ll do it.

So, my post is about good friends. At least a dozen years ago, when I lived in Whitney, TX, and was just getting started with trying to write professionally, a young woman named Sandy decided the Central Texas area needed a chapter of RWA. I headed down to Waco and helped charter the Heart of Texas Chapter, and I’ve been a member ever since, even though I don’t live there any more.

Sandy, along with the woman who would become Harlequin/Silhouette author Kristi Gold, and I formed a critique group. Later Belinda Barnes (who’s had a couple of books published by Harlequin) joined the group and we met every other week for several years–until Sandy moved away.

Sandy grew up in Galveston, and not too long ago, her daughter was reading in the Tor newsletter about New Blood, and told her mom “Hey, isn’t this one of your friends?” And something in my bio made her wonder if I was living in Galveston now. Which of course, I am.

She comes back to Galveston often. Her sister lives nearby, her parents are buried here, she has aunts and uncles just around the corner from my house… So when she came down this past weekend, we got together. She came to my house, and we talked. And talked. And talked. Then we drove around Galveston and talked some more, while she showed me all her old stomping grounds, and where she’d pictured us living, and where all her friends used to live, and we talked some more. It was SO much fun. And she’s coming back in June. I’m hoping to get some of our Waco friends to come down then so we can hang out.

That was the big event of the week. I went to a baby shower for a friend on Saturday. Went out shopping and barely made it back in time to throw on other clothes, stick the present in a bag and go. It was fun and I even got to do a little book PR, because the new mom and her sister love fantasy romance. And the shopping trip was a good one–Two pairs of pants and a T-shirt, plus printer ink.

That’s pretty much all the news I have. I got all of 9 pages written last week. Nothing at all over the weekend. Today, I’m working the dayjob all day, because I’m taking tomorrow off. I was thinking about heading out to the parents’ this weekend, but now I think I probably won’t. Not enough time. And it’s Easter. Hmm. I may have to shop again. I don’t have anything new to wear for Easter. Still, all in all, it was a good week.

It is very Monday-ish today. The weather is warm, but the sky is overcast and of course, I’m freezing in the newsroom. (Stupid vent that blows down my neck.) I have on my sweater and the “blanket” (which is really more of a shawl or cape, but it’s big and blankety) to keep warm. And I’m in a Bleah mood. Or maybe it’s better defined as a “Don’ Wanna” mood, ’cause I just don’ wanna do much of anything…and I have a LOT of stuff to do.

I did get the parents’ tax stuff mailed off to the accountant today, so that’s one thing ticked off my list. The fella spent yesterday working on Our taxes, which meant I was in my cave (I’m tellin’ ya, that office is Really Dark–all the light is on one side of the room, the hurricane shutters block most of the outside light, and it’s got dark paneling for walls. It’s a cave!) putting in the rest of my expenses and stuff in the bookkeeping program. And printing them out 3 times, because I didn’t do it exactly to suit him…

But, I’m caught up with all my receipts and royalties now, and we got the taxes mailed off. The fella set aside several thousands of $$ to use for paying them, and we did have some to pay–a little over $20. Yep, twenty bucks. We are all relieved.

I worked on cleaning up Harry & Elinor today. Not literally. I had to tweak an early scene so I didn’t entirely eliminate all the conflict, and I had to go ahead and do it now, because if I don’t know they’re conflicted and how they’re conflicted (and I’m going to have to do a major introspection or introspection-and-dialogue scene with Elinor to explain why she’s in conflict), I can’t write them that way. She may have some serious buyer’s remorse in the next little bit.

I really needed to do this, but I NEED to move on too. I’m doing a Book-in-a-Month Writeathon with my friend Anne Marie Novark in April. I am hoping I will get a lot more done.

And maybe I’ll post again sometime later in the week, because this is a very Monday-ish post. Mondays are so bleah… At least this one is.

So, yesterday was my local, land-based RWA chapter meeting, about 40 miles away up on the mainland. I always leave work early, because there’s some serious construction on the freeway around NASA, and there’s some serious rush hour traffic leaving the island at “regular” quitting time, and I hate rush hour traffic. So I was driving along, maybe 10 miles off the island, and I noticed I was having to pull the steering wheel really hard to the right to keep the vehicle straight on the road. Bad enough I realized something was seriously wrong. Then somebody pulled alongside me, pointing at my left-front tire and mouthing things like “flat tire.”

So I thanked them, and pulled over to the right lane, hunting for an exit–which was very close, as was a business driveway I could pull into. It was thumping really bad by the time I got stopped. When I got out and looked at it–eek! The tire was shredded all the way around.

Of course, I’m off the island. I have no clue what’s around me or any place I can call, so of course, I call the fella. As I am talking to him, this young man pulls up and asks if I need help. Those of you who know me–or have been to my website and seen my picture–know that I am so white, I practically glow in the dark. Even my hair is white. (Okay, it’s more silver, and it looks even silverier in photos, because it reflects the flash…) The two guys who stop, because a second man stopped before the first one could get out of his car–a young black man, and a biker. Okay, the biker worked for the local hospital, but still…

Chris and Gary worked and worked to change the tire on my massive beast of a vehicle. (Yes, I drive an SUV. I drive the least of anyone in our family, so I get the beast.) I didn’t even hold the lug nuts. Just watched–and okay, I did unwrap the spare. It was all zipped into a carpet cover. Otherwise, it was all them. They were true gentlemen, and I appreciate so much what they did for me.

I drove on to my RWA chapter meeting, listening to the road thumps all the way there, praying I didn’t lose another tire, and trying to remember whether they’d replaced the spare too, when they recalled the original tires… (Never did remember.)

At the meeting, Kimberly Frost, author of Would-Be Witch, spoke on “Scene and Story.” And it helped me out with this book I’m working on, the third blood magic universe book.

See, I started the story with one scene. And then I decided a different scene–even though there are no monsters–might be a more dynamic opening. So I set the original opening scene aside, and wrote this other scene as my opening to the book.

But then, Kimber said that our opening scene needs to connect with the main conflict in the book. So, of course, I started thinking–does it?

And I realized that the Original opening scene Does, while the New Opening scene does Not. See, the working title of this book is Harry & Elinor Fight Monsters. And the Original scene has Harry and Elinor fighting a monster. The New scene has them dealing with a secondary bad guy, and it’s mostly Elinor, not Harry & Elinor together. It’s an important scene, because it creates a lot of complications to the story. But it’s not the Main conflict. So– I flip-flopped the scenes again, and now I’m up to 50 pages along. I’m still tweaking the opening, but at least it’s only tweaks now, and not trashing and completely re-writing. (Though I wouldn’t have trashed it. Just moved it to later…)

And that’s where I am today. The older son and grandboys may get to come visit tomorrow. Cross your fingers.

I have read a book off my TBR challenge.

SABRIEL by Garth Nix.

This is a YA fantasy. Sabriel is the daughter of the Abhorsen, who makes the Dead behave. In the Old Kingdom, where she was born, the Dead don’t like to stay that way, and to come back into life, they have to eat living things. So they need the Abhorsen to make sure the Dead stay dead. There is, apparently, only one Abhorsen at a time. She’s just graduating from boarding school across the Wall from the Old Kingdom, where magic mostly doesn’t work when she gets a message from her father. He’s not quite dead, but he’s stuck in Death, and he’s sent her his sword and the bells he works his magic with. And Sabriel is off on a huge adventure. This was a pretty good adventure story, though it didn’t go very deep. Emotionally, it tended to stay at the surface. Don’t know if I will read the other books in the series. Maybe if I can get them at the library…

I don’t even know where my TEXAS RANGER book is. I’d been carrying it around in my bag to read, but the bag was getting heavy, so I took it out, but where I set it??? No clue… Sigh.

Will write more later. After I finish tomorrow’s revisions on Book II. Which is acquiring a new name. Heart’s Blood, is what it’s looking like… Romancey and ties in with New Blood.

I’m reading Silent in the Grave now…

Down to 605 pages. My back is killing me.

Finished the Brockmann book last night. Going to bed early tonight. I sure hope I can get those few more pages cut.

Okay, off to text the boy and sleep.

Down to 621 pages now!

I’ve got all the way through it, and am putting my changes (and making a few more) into the computer. I have picked out a couple more places that need to be chopped WAY down, but I just printed them out/set them aside and noted what I need to do. After I get all the way through again, I’ll work on these specific places, making sure I get in the necessary information–or figuring out whether the info in them is really necessary.

I looked to see how long New Blood was–and it was 575 pages, so I don’t feel so overwhelmed. I just hope I have enough action in Old Spirits. There’s a LOT of action at the end of the book, but…

Oh well. Have to wait and see what the ed says.

Took today off from the paper to work on it. The fella is going up to the Panhandle (where it was well below freezing this a.m.) to pack the house up this weekend, but I’m staying here. Ordering pizza for supper tonight, and I’m making the boy pick it up. I guess I’ll order it ahead of time so it’s ready when he’s on his way home. Except I didn’t give him any money… Hmm.

I am going to take a break. I am suffering from severe fanny fatigue at the moment. I got Suzanne Brockmann’s new book. Think I’ll go see if I can get a little farther into it.

I actually finished the first draft–reached the end of the story–on Monday. Today, I have it all in the computer, and it is 637 manuscript pages. (Yeah, I know. I told you, I write long.) This means I need to cut at least 100 pages out of the sucker. Cutting is easier than adding–though I do have to add to weave the cuts together, sometimes.

Wish me luck.

In other news, I got my first byline in the paper today.

This isn’t such a big deal, to be honest. I’ve written the whole entire paper back when I worked for those small town weeklies, (except for sports). And I had it in the paper once a week, when I was doing the society news column for the Clarendon Enterprise. But this was the first time I got a byline in this paper, so I was duly impressed with myself. Of course, they didn’t put my byline on the article they posted online. Oh well. But that’s the one I wrote.

So, I get to go home and print out the tome. Tomorrow, I can start cutting.

Of course, tomorrow, I also want to mess around with my new Sony e-reader and get it to working. (I haven’t had time to even install the software that came with it yet.) And I want to go see a movie. And there was something else I wanted to do, but I can’t remember what it was.

My mother’s forgetfulness is already creeping up on me!