Not All Who Wander Are Lost

I'm about 10,000 words away from the end of my novella FALLEN. The original working title was INKED and who knows what it will wind up being at the end. The problem is that I have to walk away from it for the next week. I'm heading out to the National Education Association Representative Assembly over the fourth of July weekend and I'm not bringing my computer. So, I'll have a week or so to think about everything I've written so far and make sure that it's going in the direction I want it to. Sometimes time away from a project is really helpful. If you're too much on a story it sometimes starts to twist away from you. The longer you try and force into the story the more it won't go that direction. However the story's been hopping and I don't want to walk away from it. Oh well, time to crack out the yellow legal pad. I'm sure I'll have time to scribble in between New Business Items.

I signed up to participate in The Romance Review's Sizzling Summer Reads event this summer. (See my earlier post for more details.) I'd never done anything like this before so I was understandably nervous. The part that made me the most worried was the chat I'd blithely signed up for. What would I say? What if no one said anything back to me? What if the only thing you hear were the virtual crickets out there? I stalked the chat the day before to see what the previous author's ideas were. She asked questions. That was good. I admit I swiped that idea. I asked when would you go if you could go any when in time? There were people out there ready to play! Later on I decided to throw out a a blurb from RIBBONS--that was what the whole idea was supposed to be, after all. Sell the book that was published. However, I also decided to give the readers who dropped by a taste of the story I'm currently writing. It's a neat story, if I do say so myself. It's a contemp

I have bills to pay, dinner to figure out, a three year old in need of a bath today and what I am I doing? Idly flipping through my recommendations on Amazon looking for more books to read. I just got a Kindle in May and it has only about six books on it. Definitely not enough. It's way too easy to spend money on that toy, though it doesn't take over my house the way the paper books do . . . Anyway, isn't writing and reading just another way to avoid reality? I have a niece who reads probably about as much, if not more, that I did at her age. We talk books all the time. I've gotten her hooked on a few writers--that's a rather fun feeling, I admit. However, I remember one conversation we had. Like most teenagers she wishes at times that she was anywhere but where she is. Remember that time? I do. It's when I spent most of my time in other worlds--ones I created or the worlds of the writers I loved. I remember back then thinking about how cool would it be to be

I was just reading Piers Anthony's website. For those of you who don't know who he is, Piers Anthony is one of the biggest names in fantasy. He's written the Immortals series, and the punnish Xanth series for years. I think Xanth may be on book forty-something. He said something interesting in his notes that made me think  . . .  Publishing is at a crossroads. I remember when I first started getting my first rejection letters. You'd look up the information in THE WRITER'S MARKET, write up your query letter, include your SASE (Self-addressed, stamped envelope) kiss it good luck and send it off. Months later you'd receive a standard, "Dear Author:" letter. The big publishers in New York still work that way. Though more often than not, they're talking only to agents. So, you send your letter to the agent now and get your rejection. An agent once spoke at a convention I went to. He said you can get an agent if you have a contract in hand. However, yo