So I got tagged by Jen (which I missed until today because apparently the comment got flagged as spam…no idea why).

1. The rules of the game get posted at the beginning.
2. Each player answers the questions about themselves.
3. At the end of the post, the player then tags 5-6 people and posts their names, then goes to their blogs and leaves them a comment, letting them know they’ve been tagged and asking them to read the player’s blog.
4. Let the person who tagged you know when you’ve posted your answer.

A Meme about Various Things

What were you doing ten years ago?

Let’s see…about this time 10 years ago, I was either on the beach in Panama City, Florida for my high school senior trip or just returning.

What are five things on your to-do list for today (not in any particular order)?

Go to work (yeah, on Saturday, blah), grocery shop, pick up a legustrum to plant, finish the whites in laundry, go to a party tonight

What are some snacks you enjoy?

cheese, ice cream, bread in any form, Peanut Butter Crunch, tortilla chips and fresh guacamole
What would you do if you were a billionaire?

pay off our debts, open a dog sanctuary, buy my own ranch and write to my heart’s content

What are five places where you have lived?

Tupelo, MS; Oxford, MS; Starkville, MS; Paris, France; Edinburgh, Scotland

What are five jobs you have had?

legal secretary, office manager, case manager, therapist, college instructor

What were the last five books you read?

In the middle of Heather Graham’s Kiss of Darkness

Karen Marie Moning’s Darkfever

Katie MacAlister’s Playing With Fire

Nora Roberts’ The Hollow

Nora Roberts’ Blood Brothers (which I’d read before, but read again as a refresher before The Hollow came out)

What are five web sites you visit daily (in no particular order)?

my writing blog stats

For Better or For Worse Strip Fix

The Leap Day Puppies (the social group I created for the families of Callie’s littermates)

Romancing the Blog

Murderati

So okay, let’s see.  I tag…Pot, Joely, Jaci, Bri, and Sandra.

Well the 3rd round of the 70 Days of Sweat is over.  I don’t even know were I stand on final words for the challenge.  Maybe somewhere between 30k-40k?  It’s been so long since I’ve really written–first because of our vacation, then my big hiatus to try and figure out a setup that would work for my plot in HOC, then a switch over to TD, and then the tragic and unimaginable death of our dog.  I just haven’t really had the heart to write lately.  The first week was horrible.  The week or so afterward was sort of okay.  We made arrangements to adopt a rescue–an adorable half Great Pyrenees, half Alaskan Malamute puppy we’ve named Callie.  We pick her up on the 24th in Memphis.  Planning for the new pup and keeping up with the pet parents of her littermates (we’ve started a social group, as there’s a fun story that goes along with our pooches that I’ll tell at a later date) was a good distraction.  But the last few days I’ve been unbearably sad.  I don’t know if it’s just now starting to really sink in as we approach pick up time for Callie, or if I’ve been pushing my own grief aside so as not to make it worse for my husband.  But it’s been really hard.

In standard me fashion, my response to all of this is to plan a book around it–not over the tearing grief of losing her, but putting her in her own story.  I always have dogs in my books, so it was natural enough to immortalize her on the page.  But of course I can’t just swap her out with any of the other canine characters in my current WIPs, so naturally I’m creating a new story.  The heroine is in the Witness Protection Program and is totally and completely alone in her new life (she gets relocated to Mississippi from Seattle–no one would come here to look for anybody!), so she gets a puppy.  Angel was always an incredible lot of company, so she’s perfect.  I’ve been doing research and working out a plot.  The working title is Without A Past.  That’s the sum total of my creative efforts over the last 6 weeks or so.  I’m not beating myself up about it.  I’ll come back to writing.  I always do.

Aside from that I’ve been reading like crazy.  Nora Robert’s The Hollow, Katie MacAlister’s Playing With Fire, Karen Marie Moning’s Darkfever (and how much does my local library suck for not having Bloodfever?).  I’ve dipped into a few others, including James Lee Burke’s Jolie Blon’s Bounce, Marcia Talley’s Sing It To Her Bones, and Lee Child’s Running Blind. Sadly, due to time restrictions, when I’m writing, I’m usually not reading, and vice versa.  That will probably change some over the summer as we hit rerun season and the networks cancel my favorite shows (the networks also suck for canceling Women’s Murder Club.  I LOVED that show.  At least they finished out this season’s plotline.).

Sorry for the boring update.  I do actually have several hopefully interesting posts planned to start next week–how romance as a genre brings people together, the difference between boy books and girl books, and whether writers are more likely to dramatize their own lives more than “normal” folks.  Stuff’s been kicking around, I’ve just been in the midst of a crazy hell week at work (and I even have to work today), so I haven’t had time.  Tune in next week!

It’s Monday and in my world that means staff meetings until almost lunchtime.  Normally this is an arduous and annoying way to begin the week, but in the last meeting of the morning, someone happened to bring up this quote

What would you choose to do if you knew you could not fail?

I googled it to see who said it.  Some guy named Robert H. Schuller, who’s apparently a televangelist.  Hmm.  Well, his choice of career aside, I think it’s an excellent question.

Think of all the things you never do or try because you are afraid of failure.  I know that I tend to have a habit of avoiding things I know I won’t be good at.  I like being the best at stuff.  I was good at school, good at writing.  I stunk at sports, stunk at dance.  I played guitar until I met my talented musician husband (one of those sickening people who can pick up almost any instrument and play it), then quit because I couldn’t possibly hope to be as good as he (both because my fingers are short and because there are only so many hours in the day, and I’ll spend my spare ones writing, thanks).  I’ve moved a little out of my comfort zone as far as that’s concerned as I’ve gotten older.  But still, I think it’s a tendency many of us have.  We are all afraid of failing on some level.  Professionally.  Personally.  In relationships.  In families.  And to varying degrees, that fear of failure informs our decisions and behavior.

But really, think about the question.  If you know you can’t fail at something, it takes all the risk out of it, doesn’t it?  It makes whatever that thing is less scary, makes it easier to take that first step.  Putting aside more noble goals of world peace or the cures to disease,  maybe you want to be a professional dancer or a chef or to open your own bed and breakfast or travel the world.  The possibilities are endless.

When you set out on the path to becoming a writer, the road is fraught with places for failure.  You may never finish the book.  You may never find an agent.  You may submit and submit and never get your darling accepted by a publisher.  But none of these negative outcomes have to be stopping points.  You can toss the first book and write a new one.  You could try a new genre.  You could try short stories.  Freelance.  You can keep searching for that agent and that perfect publisher.  You keep toiling, plodding along because somewhere, somehow you have faith that you will not ultimately fail.  And it’s that confidence, that faith and belief rather than a hands down guarantee that separates real writers from the dabblers.

So what about you?  What would you choose to do if you knew you couldn’t fail?

With Mother’s Day just around the corner–yeah if any of you have forgotten, go rush to the Hallmark Store this morning to pick over the leftover dreck in the card selection–quite a few folks are talking about moms and parents in their posts today. Alex Sokoloff over at Murderati wrote up a great post about the gift her mother gave her (and the concerns her parents had–as all parents do–about her going into the arts). Cody Goodfellow has another over at Storytellers Unplugged, and before the day is out, I’m sure there will be others–so I figured I would jump on the bandwagon.

When it comes to my writing, I typically don’t think of my parents at all, and when I do, it is often in a negative context. I’ve been writing since I was 12–first, copious scrawls in spiral bound notebooks, then on the ancient Wang desktop computer (with a 20 MB hard drive–my laptop presently has 250 gig…WOW how technology has changed). Through high school I was prolific, staying up well after hours, lost in my own worlds. My parents are both obnoxious morning people (to those of us who are not morning people, anyone who is perky, manic, or generally cheery upon waking should be shot), and they both loved to give me the laundry list of what all they had done while I was sleeping in on Saturday morning. By my sophomore year in high school, I was finally able to shoot back “Well, I wrote a novel while you were asleep.” I think they saw it as a mildly interesting hobby. They assumed I was good at it both because I was bright and because my teachers told them so–but neither had any real inclination to find out for themselves, which wasn’t a problem, as I wasn’t looking for their approval of what I was doing. No, they didn’t rouse themselves to do or say anything about my writing until I was about to leave for college and declared I wanted to go into journalism. That got their attention and a lengthy campaign about why it was an impractical and poor choice of career. To this day, I don’t know if I would have enjoyed journalism or not–fiction has always been my passion, so perhaps their campaign, though for misguided reasons, was a service. I wound up with a scholarship for a different major entirely and never walked down the journalism path. And as far as they were both concerned, that was the end of that.

Over the years I have been several rounds with my mother about my work on various levels. It’s always my mother because my dad has never really been involved on that level. For the most part, she hasn’t been allowed to read it since that fateful 9th grade English class essay “Me And My Temper”–a tongue in cheek paper that everyone found funny except for her–her response was to ask if I’d like to see a therapist because she thought that I was a miserable child. Um, no. Sometime in high school, she read the opening chapters to the YA supernatural thriller I was working on and her only comment was “Where are the parents?” (I consider it a mark of my adulthood that the same thought occurs to me now when I write YA–despite the temptation to have orphans or strangely independent teens as characters, they do not live in a vacuum. But shhhhh! Don’t tell her that!). When I finished the last draft of HOC last fall and my mother in law was ecstatic and prepared to hand-sell a copy to every single person who came into her shop, my own mother never asked to read it, never offered congratulations, and instead wanted to know why I had to write about sex–as if the 2 or 3 love scenes were the sum of the entire story. If you had asked me, before that conversation, whether I really cared what my mother thought about my work, I would have said no. But given how incredibly angry I got over it, apparently I do care quite a bit. I suppose deep down there is a sense that she is my mother, ergo she is supposed to support me and think whatever I do is great. Even if I absolutely stunk as a writer, she’s supposed to be supportive. The fact that I don’t suck is not the point.

I’ve gone a little tangential here, and it may sound like my parents haven’t given me anything as a writer. That’s actually not the case. The thing that they instilled in me practically from birth, is the belief that I can do anything and do it well. God gifted me with a good brain, and by damn I used it through school, racking up academic accolades. I continue to use it now, though in a different way than they would prefer. I was taught that if you work hard in high school you get scholarships (I did). That if you worked hard in college you got a good job, hands down (I didn’t, but that’s a story for another day). They also fostered (intentionally or not) an unwavering independence. I go my own way and do my own thing–they didn’t think psychology was a practical career either. They’d have preferred I go into something else, like business or accounting or medicine or law–the thought of which makes me positively glaze over with boredom. But it’s that independence that keeps me going. I would love to get published. I would love for my parents to be ecstatic about what I write. But ultimately I’m not writing for them or for publication. I’m writing for myself–and that, I think, is their greatest gift.

TD: 632

Daily Goal: Not met

It was, however, about 4 times what I wrote last night, so that’s a definite improvement.  Maybe tomorrow I’ll finally make it back to 1k.  Hubby has to work an 8 hour shift on Saturday, so I ought to have some time to get a few things done then.

Point of view is a basic and crucial decision every writer has to make at the start of any project.  The POV you choose has an enormous impact on the story you’re able to tell.  Would Janet Evanovich’s Stephanie Plum books be anywhere near as entertaining without that sassy, snarky, in-your-face first person perspective?  Sure she could bring it out in dialogue and action, but we get so much more out of being in Stephanie’s head. Would Katie MacAlister’s books be anywhere near as funny without first person POV?  I don’t think so.  Would Tami Hoag’s thrillers be quite so thrilling without those extra perspectives?  Probably not.

The list of options for perspective is, thankfully, a short one:

• Straight first person
• A rotating first person that changes characters with some natural break in the story, such as starting a new chapter (I know it’s done, but I can’t think of any examples at the moment)
• Third person limited, which could be either a single character’s perspective in the third person for the entire story or a rotating single character perspective in third person that shifts per scene or by chapter (probably the most common POV)
• Third person omniscient–otherwise known in some circles as head-hopping, where the author has the option to be in any character’s head at any given moment and shifts around in order to give varying perspectives on the scene

However, there are still a great many things to consider and weigh when choosing the perspective that will best serve your story.  Back in the Dark Ages when I began the very first draft of HOC (then a different working title and a very different sort of story), it was in straight first person from the heroine’s POV.  I was about 200 pages in when a critiquer suggested that it would be better served by third person.  Those were the days I was still scared of a rewrite.  So I held off a while.  Eventually, I got frustrated by not being able to impart information from other characters, so I did some funky bastardized combination of POVs…most of the book was in the heroine’s first person POV, but there were scenes throughout in third person from the hero’s.  Frankly I can only think of one author who has managed this sort of mix successfully–Diana Gabaldon in her Outlander series.  Miss Gabaldon, I am not.  Eventually I took the plunge and started a third person limited rewrite–of the rotating variety from scene to scene (each full scene was in only one person’s head).  Turns out that critiquer was absolutely right.  And as it turns out, this is the POV I choose for almost all of my work.  I like the ability to use more than one character.  At times I do miss the intimacy of first person, but for the most part, this serves me well.

And then I read a Nora.  I can’t say whether she always did this or not, but all of her more current books are written in that tantalizing third person omniscient.  To be perfectly honest, until my friend Jen pointed it out, it never actually occurred to me that she head hops.  Jen can’t deal with head hopping.  Drives her nuts.  Me–I don’t even notice the head hopping because she does it well.  She is, however, in the minority, I think.  I’ve read a number of books that simply pulled me out of the story because the head hopping was poorly done (I shan’t name names, as we’ve all read some).  The lure of head hopping for me is the fact that we get multiple perspectives on the same event at approximately the same time.  So you get a love scene and you know what’s going on in both the hero and heroine’s heads.  I like that.  But I think it’s a real challenge to do well.  It’s a perspective I always consider and never actually use.  I don’t know if I’d be any good at it or not, since I haven’t really tried (not intentionally anyway–Pot occasionally busts me as the POV Police when I slip).  One of these days maybe.

I noticed a post by Helen Kay Dimon from Monday where she was offering up suggestions about contest entries.  Number 2 on her list:

2. Some of you are making point-of-view (POV) harder than it needs to be. I know you’ve read books where the POV bounces around. I know. Believe me, I know. Still, I think you need to go with the general plan of not doing that. Stick to one POV per scene. Do not get caught up with all of these characters you may want to use in future books you’re thinking about writing once you sell. Focus on selling this one first. Don’t get lost in telling us how every person and animal in a scene feels. I know you think it’s effective. You’re wrong. It’s confusing. More importantly, fair or not, bouncing POV suggests you don’t know the writing basics. That gives editors and agents one more reason to give your manuscript only a cursory look. Don’t make your job harder.

And I think this hits a lot of the high points about why a lot of people don’t do head hopping well.  I confess, I avoid head hopping for many of these reasons.  I don’t want to confuse my reader.  And until I figure out how to make it work (yeah how am I going to do that without trying?), I hate to spend a lot of time writing a book that way that will wind up needing to be re-written in that third person limited, I’m more comfortable and familiar with.  And there’s nothing wrong with having a particular POV that’s your preferred style.  Do what you do and do it well and you’re more likely to get that representation and be published.  One of these days I will step outside the box–but probably not until I’m published with an established name and can maybe get away with it!

TD: 159

Daily Goal: Not met

Never really got focused in on this, but I did some revamping of the end of the scene where I left off, so hopefully I’ll be able to pick back up tomorrow.  I need to face the fact that the next couple of days of work isn’t going to be my best.  I’ve been out for a while, and I’m rusty.  But hey, any words is better than no words.

So as I said in the update to my previous post, I finally got ahold of The Hollow before lunch. And I finished about 20 minutes ago (prior to dishes and bedtime routine). Happy, Kettle! Looks like I’m getting to bed at a moderately reasonable hour (considering that I was fully prepared to be up until 2 or later). And I’m juiced! I’m feeling inspired and ready to write. Not happening tonight (do need to actually sleep), but I’m hoping the mood will carry over into tomorrow. I’ll be pouting in a day or two that I have to wait until December for the conclusion of this trilogy. I’m enjoying it. I usually do with Nora’s books. She hits all the high points with me–great friendships between women, big messy families, appealing dogs, romance, and (frequently) a dash (or more) of the supernatural. I’m about to pass out sleepy, so I’m not going to formally review (as I don’t do that), but it was an enjoyable read with an engaging hero and heroine. Go check it out.

Okay, I have been anticipating the release of The Hollow since I finished Blood Brothers last November. I had a countdown to May 6th, the official release date. I got up early to go buy it this morning before work. I hit Kroger first because, hey, I needed sour cream. They didn’t have it. Um, okay. Maybe they’re behind stocking their shelves? So I hit Walmart. They didn’t have it. WTF? We’re talking about NORA. A woman whose books tend to premier on, and usually at the TOP of the Best Seller List. And two major stores don’t HAVE it on RELEASE DAY? I want my book, damn it! If it is released May 6th, it should be available for purchase as soon as doors OPEN on May 6th. (Or actually I would have been perfectly content if they put them out yesterday like they did for Harry Potter). But this is unacceptable! It doesn’t MATTER that I don’t have time to read before lunch at the earliest and that I don’t dare bring said book to work because it will completely obliterate my productivity for the day. I wanted it THERE when I went home for lunch! So that I could eek out and plow through as much book as possible in 50 minutes. This is just NOT COOL. Will keep you posted.

And I still didn’t get my sour cream.

And crap, I just realized that Katie MacAlister’s latest, Playing With Fire, released today too! So many books, so little time…

Update–10:50 am:  Just returned from B and N over on campus.  They only had 4 copies.  What’s up with that?  FOUR?  Of a brand new Nora?  I swallowed the bile at paying full retail (which I NEVER do for books, as I’m on a budget and can buy more if I go with used and sale) and decided that it would wind up costing me that much in gas if I went back to Walmart later.  I’m electing to wait on Playing With Fire until I can get it used.  Which blows, but I have to exercise self restraint somewhere.

Some of you may remember from back in the fall–Novemberish–when my soft-hearted spouse brought home a puppy from band practice.  One of the band members’ wife owns a dog spa and that’s where they practice.  Anyway, someone had left this poor puppy at the spa in the middle of the night when it was in the 20s out.  John and Meg had him for a few days, but they couldn’t keep him because they already have five dogs.  So DH brings him home.  Now this was some time after Shadow had died and this puppy appeared to be a Husky mix with these gorgeous blue eyes and I knew why DH was bringing him home.  He was expecting me to cave exactly like I did when he brought home Angel (whom we obviously kept).  What he didn’t take into account was that he was working nights, which left me to be the only one to let puppy out, and also meant that he didn’t get to sleep during the day because puppy was so small he fit through the gap between the gate and the fence.  All was well that ended well on that front, as he wound up going to my father in law.  Well Teal’c is now about 7 or 8 months old and gorgeous.  Looks to be a husky/German shepherd mix.  And Dad let him come home with us for a sleepover last night.  He’s been a really well behaved house guest, and it’s been really good for DH.  Teal’c has a lot of the same mannerisms that Angel did (some so similar that it’s trippy), and that’s been comforting to us both.  We both feel a little like we’re coming out of a long (and not good) sleep.  There’s stuff to deal with that didn’t go away during all the horrible aftermath this week.  Work must be done.  House must be cleaned.  Bills must be paid.

There’s been no writing this week.  Not that this is a shock.  But I feel like my head is finally getting back into a place where I could write.  So this morning I’m having tea and looking over where I left off with Til Death.  We’re actually going down to Jackson today with the in-laws, but tomorrow I’ll have some time to get back to it (I hope).

On the puppy front, we’re going to be meeting the present owners in Memphis on the 24th to pick up our new daughter.  We’ve decided to name her Callie (my turn–DH named Daisy and Angel).  I’ve been making a list of expenses so that I can work them into the budget–the usual shots and worming, spaying, a Furminator (she’s going to have thick hair either way and shedding will be a problem–plus, we live in Mississippi where it’s really hot in the summer, so we HAVE to be able to thin out her coat–is it sad that I’m excited she’ll shed?  We have been mourning the lack of Angel hair this week.), a pair of retractable leashes (we used to have one, but I have no idea what happened to it–I’ve discovered it’s much easier to train them to walk on a retractable), and a large supply of Puppy Chow.  I’ve also been making a To Do List.  There are all sorts of things we’ve been putting off that we will have to get done before we pick her up.  There’s a big hole in the yard where an old stump rotted out forever ago.  It’s covered with a lawn chair because Daisy and Angel never messed with it, but we can’t trust a puppy not to.  So that has to be filled.  We need to finally get the dog house moved from Allen’s parents.  It’s custom built and friggin huge.  And best of all (for me anyway), DH finally has to deal with the disaster area that is his office.  He has to go through and pick up and clean out everything in his office because if it is in the floor, she’ll probably try to chew on it or play with it.  Which, given that most of what’s in his office is computer equipment or music equipment, is bad.

There are so many other projects to do: make and install the new mailbox post, build the flowerbed around said mailbox post, pour the concrete slab for our shed (yeah,  the one that’s been sitting in our garage since freaking SEPTEMBER)–and that’s just outside. At some point this year, we’re going to redo our bathroom, which will involve tearing out the current vanity, fitting in a new one (which will be this great refinished French Provincial dresser we got for $10! at a garage sale), putting up beadboard and chair rail, putting down new floors (found some great peel and stick vinyl tiles that look like Travertine), new baseboards, and painting everything.  And we wanted to put up new kitchen cabinet doors and crown moulding in the kitchen.  That last one may wind up waiting until next year’s budget.

Anyway, that’s the update.