Author Archives

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A look at the chaos of writing

Yesterday I wrote about the chaos of my organization abilities – or lack there of. So today I decided to take some pictures to share the craziness. Not only are the notes scattered over pages and pages of paper the writing is barely decipherable. Of course, not everything that is written on paper will be in the story – and a lot of what isn’t written will be. If only every story followed the same rules I might be able to figure out a better system but I have written several books and every one has taken its own path. It’s enough to drive a person mad – talk me back from the ledge!!

As always, I love  love love hearing from readers – feel free to post comments here or on facebook.

 

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Halloween Photos

So, my children finally gave in to my pleas to dress back up in their Halloween costumes so I could get a few pictures since they had taken their costumes to a friend’s house on Halloween and changed out of them before I picked them up. My eldest didn’t want to get all gored-up for a zombie (sigh; I really wanted to do zombie make up. How much fun would that have been? Especially with the awesomely awesome fake blood!) so he’s a pirate. With a bloody slash across his cheek. And he is using the fake blood as hair gel – it nicely dyes the hair and washes out super easily. The daughter is also a pirate. And the middle son is Harry Dresden, wizard.

Funny story: I ordered a pentacle for him from New Jersey a week before Halloween and it was scheduled to arrive on the 27th – since we’re in North Carolina. Easy peasy, right? On the 30th I looked on line to see where the silly thing was and wouldn’t you know? It had been sent from Charlotte (three hours away from us) to Massachusetts on the 28th. Needless to say, it arrived on the 1st and we were forced to improvise Halloween night with a metal circle, some embroidery floss and silver spray paint.

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zombies and fake blood

This year my eldest plans on taking part in the local zombie walk and of course that means blood and lots of it. Luckily I found a site that had 13 recipes (how to make fake blood) and we tried a few, both edible and non-edible. We discovered that the first recipe is great for edible but instead of using the fool coloring drops we used Wilson red-red icing color and chocolate sauce and the color is perfect – no need for blue or green.We also added some corn starch to thicken it up a little bit. My son says it tastes like bland chocolate; I think it has just a hint of chocolate flavor but it isn’t bad and it is perfect for vampires and zombies and other beasties. I am doing a test right now to see if it stains the skin if it is left on for an extended period of time, which will be interesting when we have dinner tonight….

And then the awesome blood that is non-edible – the tenth recipe: Movie blood for splatter and smear, but instead of motor lubricant I used castor oil, which works wonderfully.

3/4 parts hair gel (we’ll say 3/4 cup)

1/4 parts water (1/4 cup)

Wilson’s Red-Red Icing color (use a toothpick – it’s more of a visual thing.  A little bit goes pretty far)

mix together- it looks like strawberry gel t this point.

mix in a little chocolate sauce – again a little bit goes far. I used maybe 3/4 teaspoon? It was a visual thing, too.

I didn’t use the hand sanitizer at all and the blood is awesome. The texture, the consistency, the color (oh, dear lord the color!) is fantastic.

This is my son. This is just the first stage of his costume. Since the picture was taken last night he has dragged the shirt through dirt and mud and tore it up some more. When he dresses up he will be splattering more blood onto the shirt, his skin and edible blood will dribble from his mouth. A couple of girls will be doing his zombie make up. I hope he remembers to take pictures.

 

*** It does not stain!! Also, do not eat the non-edible blood. 🙂

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The costume is finished!

The costume is finally done!! 🙂 It may have gone faster if I had the ability to follow directions but there wasn’t a pattern for what I wanted to do. I cannibalized several patterns to get the skirt/ lace dress/ overcoat and I had to figure out the sleeves on my own, which was interesting and took the longest. But they also turned out better than I had hoped; I love them. And I think we can all agree that my daughter is adorable.

(If you click on an image you’ll be taken to the gallery to see the larger images.)

And now it’s back to Armand.

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My dog Lucy

  Just over two years ago Lucy came into our lives. A hybrid (a fancy word for mutt) of a Shih Tzu and Coton de Tulear, Lucy is a wonderful dog who will do just about anything for food. Her hair is much shorter than usual because it gets really hot in the summer and her long, long hair tends to get matted despite our best efforts – and she doesn’t like the groomers.

Just thought I would share these pictures of her because I really need to get back to writing and I am stalling.

The last picture is Lucy partially groomed; we took a break before we got to her legs.

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Alternate project is almost done!!

The quilt that I am making for my nephew’s Christmas present is almost done!! My fingers hurt from pulling the needle through to get the yarn ties but thankfully I have a couple of kiddos that are willing to help tie it up. All that is left is the binding – woohoo!!

 

I am hoping to have Stone Romance up at amazon soon-ish. As soon as it is up I will set up the free days as well. I am also  getting back to Stone Destiny – I hope to be able to work on it this evening some during my daughter’s dance class. I have a ton of notes to go through – I hope I can find everything I wrote down. I have started a new method recently – each story gets its own notebook and a matching folder; so far it seems to be working well. Now I just have to figure out how to organize my notes….

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No two people read the same book

Actually, the real quote is, “No two persons ever read the same book.” (Edmund Wilson) And holy mackerel is that statement true! Take any book and read a sampling of the reviews and you’ll find yourself wondering if they even read the same book. What is praised in one is completely trashed in the other, from the writing and grammatical errors (which shouldn’t be debatable but apparently are) to the story line, the writing style, the characterizations, the dialog, and everything (and I mean everything) in between. It’s amazing how each person reacts to the same book: the words are the same, the story is the same but the response is vastly different. And the higher the expectations the worse the review if the story fails to deliver. What a person brings with them when they begin a story matters, too; being in the right frame of mind can mean the difference between loving a book and loathing the same book. It’s fascinating to see the different responses and learning more about what makes people tick.

 

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Voodoo writing

I’m pretty sure writing is a type of magic: every single time I sit down at my computer to begin a story I panic and wonder if this time the words will come or if this time there will be nothing there. Every. Single. Time. Even half way through a story I battle with the doubts and fear of looking and finding nothing there. And then there are the absolutely dreadful periods when there IS nothing there – no thoughts, no ideas, just endless miles of blank thoughts. At those times, one just feels empty inside and tries to fill the void with mindless busy work. And at the first sign of something the sense of relief is profound – the imagination hasn’t completely died! And once that blockade disappears, one can see that what had appeared to be endless miles of nothingness was in fact a mirror reflecting another mirror giving the illusion of nothingness: everything was still there, it was just hiding. It’s hard to remember that when faced with a barren wasteland. The illusion is created and shattered on what appears to be an outside whim and if I could figure out the secret to both I wouldn’t have a panic attack every time I open my computer to write.

The other side of a barren wasteland is disappearing into the zone, when the writing just flows and words magically appear on the screen. The real world disappears as I get lost in what is happening to my characters – their thoughts, their movements; it’s a movie within my head. And as wonderful as it is to fill up pages and pages of a story it is also nerve-wracking: where did these words come from? Often times when I re-read what I allegedly wrote it’s  different than how I remember it, making connections that I hadn’t intended but work out so well. My fear is that the little muse that issues forth these words will become disgusted with me and disappear one day. So, not only is there the fear of having nothing to write but also of losing the voice that tells the story.

Yes, writers are a little insane – at least this writer is. 🙂 But that is what makes my characters so very interesting.