Archive for April, 2006
April 30, 2006
10:57 am • Filed under: Uncategorized
All the talk of Duran Duran has made me nostalgic. I loved those dudes! I was gonna marry Roger Taylor (the drummer). I even wrote about it in one of my early, wonderful, lovely novels (changed my name to something more exotic, though). Wrote those “novels” in school notebooks, and in the 9th grade it literally got passed around the whole school. I had people I didn’t even know (female Duran fans of course) coming up to me and telling me how good it was. HAH! Those things were total crap.
The title of said novel (spread out in multiple notebooks - I didn’t know how to make a story end back then cos I didn’t want to!)? Um, it was: ? Otherwise known as Question Mark. Which goes to show I wasn’t any good at titles then, and I’m not much better now!
Anyway, I bought all the magazines, albums (vinyl back then baby, and including the special imported remixes), books - everything. Even went and saw them live in Feb. of 84, Power Station in July of 85 (with John and Andy Taylor), and Duran Duran again in summer of 93. I wanted to see them last year but the seats sucked and the tickets were like $70! My friend and I (she’s a former Duranie too - she wanted to marry Nick Rhodes - I think she liked his makeup) decided against it. We were fans but not that big of fans ~ anymore.
Wanna hear something weird? First marriage was to a drummer. Second marriage, my husband shares a birthday with . . . Roger Taylor! I AM not KIDDING! So I think I was always searching for Roger, I just didn’t know it.
By the way, I have a lot of their music on my iPod, and I’m not ashamed to say it.
Here’s a new pic of them by the way. John looks bad! Everybody else looks ok . . .
April 28, 2006
11:42 am • Filed under: Uncategorized
When you write, do you need peace and quiet or do you like to listen to music? I’m on both sides of the fence. Sometimes, I need quiet, sometimes I don’t have that option and I write amongst cartoons blaring and children running around like banshees.
Other times, I get in these weird creative moods where I need music. And then something strange happens and the lyrics start talking to me. And I listen to the same damn song over and over and over again. It’s embarrassing cos your iPod tells you how many times you listen to a song - yes, it keeps count. And when you realize you’ve listened to a specific song over 50 times, you kinda feel like a fool. But the song is talking to me. I can’t help it.
Here’s an excerpt from Jane’s Addiction’s song “Jane Says.” My heroine just happens to be named Janie - and this part right here is her. The song inspired me before I actually came up with the character:
Jane says I’ve never been in love
I don’t know what it is
She only knows if someone wants her
I want them if they want me
I only know they want me
She gets mad And she starts to cry
She takes a swing man
She cant hit!
She don’t mean no harm
She just dont know
What else to do about it
Poor Janie. She’s a mess.
On a side note, if Julie S is not going to write the rock star flashing in the window story, I’m thinking I’m gonna do it. And I’m going to model my hero after Dave Navarro from — Jane’s Addiction! You know, the freaky dude who’s married to Carmen Electra? Well, I watched that show on MTV that followed their wedding, and he was so sweet and so into her. Soft spoken, intelligent. And he looks like some freaky crazy rocker dude, but take away the black nail polish, the excessive tatoos and the black eyeliner and he’s pretty good looking. Well, maybe keep the black eyeliner cos he looks good with sultry eyes.
Uh, I can’t believe I just said that.
April 27, 2006
10:57 am • Filed under: Uncategorized
So I’ve been killing time, doing mindless crap on the laptop, anything to keep me from working on a sex scene that needs to be written.
I mean, come on, I want to be a romance writer, I should LOVE writing sex scenes right? Well, they should at least be EASY to write.
Wrong.
I gotta find a rhythm when writing a sex scene, gotta have uninterrupted time to write it and let’s just face it, I have to be in the mood. Isn’t that funny, it sounds a lot like…having sex!
But I digress. So in my process of killing time, I decided to open up the wip that I wrote during NaNo in Nov. A blitz of a 55,000 word wip that I completed in a month. I wanted to revisit the story, knowing it’s a story that I’ll never publish, and maybe I could crib some good ideas, scenes, words, whatever from it.
Here’s the Confession Part 1 - I used the same characters that I’m working with right now. Oh, there’s a lot of differences, but basically it’s the same two. I love these two, I want their story told, and when I gave up on the NaNo, I just tweaked them (a lot) and started the current wip. I’ve never done this before, but with these two, I just had to.
Confession Part 2 - My 55,000 blitz of a wip is not bad. It’s the virgin hero story I gave up on. There’s some great stuff in there. I’m not trying to brag, but my subplot is fab. The hero’s best friend and the heroine’s sister get together, complete polar opposites and they are funny. I was writing this for HQ Blaze, so I still would’ve had 20,000 words to go on the sucker. But I finished it in a sense, I wrote the final scene and I had a plan for the rest. It was a matter of going back and adding a few more scenes to the subplot mostly and a lot of layering.
So why did I give up on this thing? I think I suffered from “I stinkitis.” (Who made that up, anyway? I read it somewhere and I loved it cos I have this ailment quite often). I thought it sucked. I thought no one would be interested in a virgin hero. I thought there wasn’t enough conflict.
I think I was wrong. There’s so much internal conflict with these two it’s crazy. And the creative ways they come up with to avoid losing his virginity. My, my I wrote a trifle hot back in Nov.What am I going to do with this thing? I have no idea, cos all of a sudden, I don’t want to give up on it. But there’s going to be a lot of work. I need to change the plot quite a bit (there’s a few overlapping things between the two wips and one unrealistic part that I would want to chuck altogether), change the characters (can’t have two stories with the same names - that’s just plain stupid). Oh, it sounds like a nightmare.
It’s been so long since I gave it a complete read through, and when I got close to the end, the “black moment,” I guess you would call it, I cried. I don’t think I’ve ever done that with anything I’ve written before!
I should’ve never opened up the thing - it was like opening up a new can of worms to worry about, when I already have one I’m worrying about right now.
Frick.
April 26, 2006
12:47 pm • Filed under: Uncategorized
Almost forgot to share the latest image of Mr. Hotness. He posted this on his myspace. See why I sent him a message?
Though I’m going to sound like a mother here and tell him he needs to iron his shirt!
April 26, 2006
12:37 pm • Filed under: Uncategorized
That’s me. I’m overwhelmed and touched at the fact that I’m Julie Cohen’s idol and she’s sending more books to her hunky hero inspirations. That she wrote an entire blog about me and what I inspired her to do. What’s so funny is that she’s the one who encouraged me to write to my hero inspiration, after she shared her letter to John Cusack. So I guess we’ve helped each other out with this! I wish her luck and I hope that they respond.
And I’m barreling down the home stretch with my wip. It’s coming along quite nicely. I can see the light at the end of the tunnel, and it’s getting brighter and brighter.
How’s everyone else’s writing progress? Fast and furious, slow or no go? In revision hell (I know some of you are)? Share. Share the agony and the ecstasy!
April 25, 2006
11:09 am • Filed under: Uncategorized
You won’t believe this ‘cos I can’t believe it myself.
I was on myspace yesterday, minding my own business. Went into my friends list and saw that the inspiration for my hero, Kaysar from Big Brother, was online (yep, he’s one of my “friends” but I’ve never talked to the dude. He’s got like 4500 friends!). So I thought to myself, “Should I? Should I send him a message and tell him he’s the model for my hero? Huh huh huh?”
Well, I did. I sent him a rather mysterious message saying he would die of embarrassment of what he inspired me to do, but I wouldn’t tell him what it was.
He responded back immediately, asking me to tell him.
I couldn’t believe it. Mr. Reality TV Star responde to little ol’ me? Miss Wannabe Author who’s writing a “dirty” novel with him in mind? No way! I figured he would ignore my message. The guy probably gets a bazillion dumb messages a day (he has a huge fan base - the ladies love him).
So I told him. I told him I’m an aspiring author, I’m almost finished with a book and he’s the inspiration behind the hero.
And this is what he wrote back this morning:
“Thats awesome. Thanks for sharing. You made my day!!!! I hope your story gets published because I want a copy. “
Isn’t that just the coolest? I wrote him back telling him he made MY day. Which he did.
On a side note, my day was made brighter yesterday by the fact that I also finally received my April copies of the Modern Extra books and my Alphasmart finally came in! That thing is so light - and so cool! Once I’m finished with my current wip, I’m going to work on the next one and use the Alpha (yes, I already have another story idea brewing!).
April 24, 2006
11:07 am • Filed under: Uncategorized
I gave myself a goal this weekend of getting my word count to 45,000. And yahoo I did it! I am now 75% of the way through my wip!
Which excites me and frightens me all at the same time. Here’s how I feel - Yea, it’s almost done! And - It’s almost done????? Oh crap!
It’s exciting to be almost finished. This will be the first manuscript I’ve completed that I like (uh, the real first ms I completed is a real disjointed piece of you know what but we don’t need to talk about it), so I’m proud of that achievement. But on the flip side, now I have to go back and layer in some stuff, edit the crap, etc. and then submit it.
Oh boy.
And then once it’s submitted I have to sit around and wait and wait and wait and hope they won’t send me a R. And if I do get the dreaded R, then I hope it’s at least one with comments on how to improve.
See how my brain is working? I’m already jumping to the R I’m going to receive and I haven’t even completed it yet! I think I just need to take one step at a time and deal with that stuff later.
So I gotta go finish writing a love scene. My two were just about to have a little “Love in a Elevator” (think Aerosmith) but they got interrupted. They’ve now moved on to a balcony. Whoo-hoo!
April 23, 2006
11:28 am • Filed under: Uncategorized
It won’t stop raining.
Oh, yes, I live in glamourous California, where it’s always supposed to be sunny and warm and beautiful.
This year, that theory has been thrown out the window - landing on the wet and soggy ground.
As I type, it’s pouring down. I can see it land in my pool (sniff, sniff - the pool I feel we’re never going to be able to use cos it WON’T STOP RAINING). It’s been raining all weekend. This past week was beautiful - sunny and around 75-80 degrees. Friday night, a thunder/lightning storm blew in and the hits just keep on a comin’.
I’m not one to gripe about rain. Usually, we don’t get enough and we suffer through drought, fires, etc. Last year was a wet one. Couldn’t believe how much it rained. This year has topped it. Big time.
Come on Mother Nature! I don’t want 100 degree weather tomorrow, cos that’ll be here soon enough (yuck). Just give us some sun. Spare our overflowing water ways and give it up! Of course, when the warm weather comes back, the snow melts and the overflowing water ways overflow even more. I feel like right now, it’s a no win situation.
Ok enough of my griping. I had to get that off my chest. It’s just too damn depressing, this rain. Make it stop! Please!
Hope y’all had a nice and DRY weekend!
April 21, 2006
11:50 am • Filed under: Uncategorized
To be honest, Fridays aren’t that big a deal to me. I stay at home now, so I never get to leave my job (which is a bummer), my husband’s days off are Wed. & Thurs. so our Fri. night is really Tues. But that doesn’t matter anyway cos he gets NO days off the rest of the month! He only got 3 days off total! He works for slaves drivers. But that’s a whole other story.
So I’ve decided I have ADD. When it comes to reading books. I kid you not I can have 4-5 different books going at the same time, which is ridiculous. Right now I have three going: The new Plum Sykes book I mentioned yesterday, the Donald Maass book and workbook (does that count as a total of 4 then?) and Tori Carrington’s new Blaze, Obsession. All three are completely different, and all three are very good.
Does anybody else read more than one book at a time? Do you wonder if you’re a little nuts for doing it? Or do you think it’s completely normal? I know I’m not completely normal, but I thought I would just check in with the rest of ya.
April 20, 2006
3:34 pm • Filed under: Uncategorized
I’ll make this quick.
Donald Maass is a genius.
Love his book Writing the Breakout Novel. And I’m getting into the workbook right now. So much information to make your writing richer, deeper - and just better! I’m loving it ALL!
Ok, I had to say that.
