I’m ready to start this NaNo writing rumpus.  Fleshed out in not-too-deep detail is an outline for my paranormal/sci-fi, middle-grade mystery thriller.  Well, it thrills me.  I know characters, plot, technologies, settings, what to research and what to create.  I wrote an unrelated short story that pinged my third layer for this book into existence–the virtual reality bit, and I’m so excited to play with it.  I really can’t wait to get started.

Also, I thought I’d note that Becca Fitzpatrick’s Hush, Hush is #7 on the New York Times bestseller list!  The book melts in your mouth, it’s true.  And Becca just plain rocks.

I just admired my fellow writer Pat Esden’s corkboard on her wall.  It’s bursting with pink and white plot notes in very specific places on her very specific timeline.

http://patesden.livejournal.com/61204.html

Not only am I envious of her ability to crank out book after book (they’re good–and look what she does to get them that way), I’m envious of her space.  It is entirely refreshing and… voyeuristic? to see inside another writer’s room–her desk, her walls, the outlines she has posted up.  She has a writer’s heaven.

I cannot wait to have my own room to clutter (or clean–hers is still clean).  With artwork, outlines, corkboards, rejection letters, file cabinets, clotheslines, book shelves, a heavy bag, maybe a hammock… whatever helps my worlds come true.  I’ll bury myself in my writer’s sarcophagus and haunt any who dare intrude my heaven.

Which currently looks like this:

Lots of windows to see out of.

Thanks, Patty, that was a lovely present.

Mary Kole of Andrea Brown is having a query contest for YA, MG and picture books.  The deadline is October 31st at witching hour.  Well, 11:59 pm.

www.nanowrimo.org

I didn’t think I could do this last year.  Time, right?  As in, none of it?  After everyone’s stories, I wish I’d considered it anyways.  So… enough thinking.

I’m signed up!!!

watch the trailer:

http://www.amazon.com/Hush-Becca-Fitzpatrick/dp/1416989412/ref=sr_1_1?ie=UTF8&s=books&qid=1255495725&sr=8-1

see the interview:

http://books.simonandschuster.com/Hush-Hush/Becca-Fitzpatrick/9781416989417

buy the book:

I read Hush, Hush when it was still being revised, and way back then it was fantastic.  I could think of nothing else for days.  It was released from Simon and Schuster today!  Becca Fitzpatrick is an incredibly talented writer, with a fresh voice and a feel for sexual tension and adventure that are gripping.  Nora and Patch won’t ever let you go.  Seriously.  Buy it.

Some days the writing just flows right.  Like today.

I polished up a new story for JosephsDiabetes.com.  Multiple-choice style.  Your substitute teacher…

a) swam in from the sea.
b) has pickle-like appendages.
c) is the meanest sub ever.
d) loves spaghetti.

Which will it be?  Find out soon.

“I hate you.”

“Get out of my face!”

“You touch me and I’ll turn you into an inkwell.”

I’m wondering about mining emotions for sympathetic mood scenes in my writing, as a way of sparking the day’s flow. Tension hums, dialogue flies, events erupt.  And my own mind’s wounds get cauterized, sympathized, soothed.

Reluctantly, I am coming to terms with my “feminine” side–”I feel this” and “I feel that” seem to squirm their way out even when, practically speaking, it doesn’t matter.  In the past, denial has helped me to think straight and avoid trouble.  Now I’m pregnant and all there are are emotions.  Well, if you can’t beat ‘em, join ‘em.  And use ‘em.

Sleeping with sword at the foot of my bed, glass shards around it, and frigid air to keep intruders away tonight.  Never mind that said (plastic) sword just didn’t get put away, said shards from broken lantern just didn’t get vacuumed before sleep time, and said air is just always freezing in the basement.  I still feel protected.

Protected from what?

Crickets.  The nasty ones that crawl in your nose in the middle of the night–may they be sliced to shreds.

We have a hole!  They dug it yesterday and today.  If I were there I’d sleep in it, homeless no longer.

I joined up with Facebook.  After three years of spraying invite repellant above my “work” computer.  Tonight, my lack of social life clashed bloodily with my e-info paranoia and won.  It’s such a relief to see everyone.  I’m going to suffer identity theft at any moment, but at this moment, at least I have an identity.