Divine Misdemeanor = Literary Disappointment

Even the masters make rookie mistakes, as New York Times bestselling author Laurell K. Hamilton's Divine Misdemeanors proved.

As anyone who regularly reads this blog knows, I'm a huge Hamilton fan. Her characters are so very different than any others I read, and I don't mean in the fact that they have more magic and sex per page than most erotica and fantasy novels combined.

Loving Rain, and Other Things that Make Me Weird

Were all Americans to be polled, my general views on what constitutes happiness would place me distinctly in the minority on many issues. Case in point: today was a gorgeous cloudy day, with rain imminent, and I had a much harder time focusing on work than I have had all summer through all those bright and clear sunny days. You all can have your sunny days. I'll take a day with clouds, any type, any day over a crystal-clear blue sky.

Let Me Eat Cake!

I've recently attempted to cut sugar out of my diet, specifically processed sugar (not fruit or anything crazy like that). For the most part, my experiment was going well. I didn't have cravings. I had everything under control. I didn't even whine when Cody continued to eat desserts. Better yet, I didn't even feel the urge to whine. Even I was surprised by that.

Then season two of Cake Boss came out on Netflix.

Bridge to Freedom

Faye Progress:
61725 / 90000 words. 69% done!

When I was in high school, I took a few years of drawing classes. I studied with pencil, colored pencil, and ink. I loved it. Drawing taps into that same part of my brain that writing does. It shuts out the rest of the world and brings complete focus into every aspect of the piece, narrowing the world down to a line, a shadow, a shape, a texture. The only problem was that inevitably, at some point in the project, my mind would wander and I would start working by rote.

Second Wind

Faye Progress:
48944 / 90000 words. 54% done!

My last post inspired another few pages and now I'm only 1,056 words from the traditional NaNo goal of 50,000 words in a month! Hooray! I also finished the scene I had to leave off this morning when it was time to get to (paying) work. Tomorrow I start fresh with a very intense scene.

Now to get some food!

One Month and Counting

Faye Progress:
47332 / 90000 words. 53% done!

It's been one month since I started writing Faye, and having typed 47,000 words / 158 pages is a good feeling. Were this during NaNo WriMo, I would have failed the 50,000-word challenge, mainly because I took five days off during the last month. Still, an average of 1,577 words a day isn't bad at all!

The Rejection Slump

Faye Progress:
41798 / 90000 words. 46% done!

Normally I'm positive about my writing. I feel I've got it going on, at least well enough to know what needs to be edited and changed and fixed and polished. I truly love my Madison novel. I usually think it's well written. But this unlucky number 13 rejection took the wind from my sails. I've got a lot of doubts circling in my head right now—about my talent as a writer, about my main character, about my novel's opening, about various little factors that agents have commented on.

A Few of My Favorite Stalkees

Faye Progress:

36154 / 90000 words. 40% done!

Some people have actors that they'll watch anything they act in or novelists that they'll read anything they write. I've got a few of those, too, but I also have a few directors/screenwriters/producers that I actively stalk. Their numbers are few at the moment—three, to be exact—but I'm very loyal to all three, and for completely different reasons.

Painting Frenzy

Despite the fact that I have been writing six days a week for a minimum of an hour and a half a day, my creative impulses have not been completely satisfied. I've felt a compulsive desire to paint.

Now, for me, this isn't about a canvas or creating a picture. I want to paint three-dimensional objects. Since I first moved out on my own, I've found a certain meditative pleasure in painting, and very few items in my home are safe.

Lessons While Reading

I just finished Gail Carriger's second novel, and I loved it as much as the first. (Carriger was a Number One Novels find last year.) I love how she pokes fun at Victorian society, the humor that weaves through action-filled plots, and the sheer imagery of the setting, but most of all, I love how well werewolves and vampires are integrated into history in her crossover steampunk, fantasy, and regency romances.

A Bit of Seriousness

Faye Progress:
26009 / 90000 words. 29% done!

I just watched part of J.K. Rowling's interview on today's Oprah, and I was struck again by how seriously she takes her craft—how much thought goes into each word. She thought she knew the final word of her novel before she even got there. She can remember certain lines that she considered writing into the work and later scratched. Much more than simply putting down the story, she put a great deal of thought into each word of that story.