Jordan Summers

I swear this novella refuses to end. (Picture me hitting my head on my desk here.) I think I may have mentioned that I’ve been writing this book in pieces. I discovered yesterday that most of what I have left are love scenes. (Forehead bleeding now.) I didn’t realize it until yesterday. I have enough difficulty writing one love scene, but now I have at least two to write and quite possibly three. (Wailing here.)

Before you ask, yes, I do need all those scenes because a lot is happening during the lovemaking in this book. One hero is holding back due to his perceived sins of the past, while the secondary man is trying to get a verbal acceptance out of a woman in order for him to maintain his flesh form. (He’s a gorgoyle.) Both are working toward an emotional connection. One man realizes this, while the other doesn’t until it’s too late. So I can’t skip any of them. WAAA!!!

I suppose I should look at this as a lesson to be learned. If one chooses to write books in pieces, make sure the pieces are equally distributed. (Shaking head.) Have any of you had something like this happen?

I woke up this morning to more pieces of my story falling into place. It’s been a long time since that’s happened. (I normally get story ideas and thoughts at night right as I’m attempting to fall asleep.) I plan to strike while the iron is hot.

Perhaps it was the storms that hit last night that brought me these missing pieces. Goodness knows we had some whoppers. The kind of electrical and thundering brilliance that bring you from dozing to awake in about a half second as you ponder whether your roof is about to get ripped off.

In our case, I only had a few seconds to think about that before the hail hit. :-/ How did I know it was hail? Because it was so loud that dh and I actually got out of bed to go check. Rain, to my knowledge, doesn’t feel like ice under bare feet.

Today, it’s partly sunny, but still looks like it wouldn’t take much to bring on the rain. Normally, I like storms, especially if I can stand under a porch and watch them. There’s something incredibly primal about being in one. At night, not so much. I think because you can’t see what’s coming. (And you know, if you’ve been reading my blog, how much I like to know what’s going to happen.)(wg)

What about you? Do you like standing in the rain or playing in the snow? Do you have a favorite weather phenomena?

I’m sad that the folks left today. At least I didn’t cry all the way back from the airport. Sniffle. We’re going to miss them, but I suppose someone needs to take care of Scotland for us until we can get back there. Sigh.

I’ve been doing a lot of thinking about writing over the last few days, since I haven’t gotten any actual work accomplished. I’ve realized that I have finally hit the point where writing has turned into hard work. Before anyone throws rotten tomatoes at me, let me explain. For whatever reason, I’m one of those people who have had ‘certain’ things come fairly easy to them. I dabbled in music years ago and came close to getting a record deal. (Thank God and the gremlins that didn’t happen.) Shudder. I took acting classes and landed work in commercials. It was fun. I enjoyed it long enough to realize I wasn’t passionate about the work. Mind you, I did work for these things, but I didn’t work as hard as some of the people I saw around me. (There was a very large element of ‘how did I end up here’ happening.) The same can be said for the writing. I feel like I’ve been suddenly dropped into the movie Fame. Particularly, the scene where Debbie Allen (the dance instructor) says to the students that fame costs and that they are about to pay with sweat.(wg)

That’s pretty much where I’m at. I’ve finally hit the point in my writing where I have to REALLY work for the stories. (Not the ideas, thank goodness, but the stories themselves.) Let me tell you, it’s been a rude awakening for me. The funny thing is I don’t think that’s a bad thing. (Like Stephen King said, if you want to be good, you have to be prepared to work your arse off.) I think the quality of my work is getting better with each book. Am I anywhere near where I want to be? No way. I still have a tremendous amount of work ahead of me. I’m okay with that because I believe in my heart of hearts it’s worth every drop of sweat, every moment of self-doubt, every groan of frustration, and every tear that’s shed.

Whether you choose to be a writer or to do something else with your life, the passion HAS to be there. Now tell me, what are you passionate about? Painting? Photography? Caring for others?

Went out shopping yesterday after turning in 150 books to the used bookstore. Did that even make a dent in my book pile? NO! Did that stop me from buying 9 new and used books? NO! I’m so bad. I’m telling you, it’s an addiction. (Shaking head)

Found two pairs of shoes while I was out. Well, actually, I found a lot more than that, but dh wouldn’t allow me to come home with more than two pairs. (wg) I like some of the styles coming out this year, even though many of them remind me of the eighties. My favorite pair are made by a company called Mudd. If you haven’t checked these shoes out, do so. They’re VERY comfortable in a clunky sort of way. Okay, I’ll admit I’m a tad addicted to shoes and books. I know I’m not alone in this sickness. What are you addicted to?

My dh’s folks are leaving this weekend. The time has flown by. We’re just going to watch movies tonight and maybe do brunch tomorrow. I’ll be in and out online. If you need to get in touch, drop me an email directly. Have a great weekend.

Spent much of the day sitting at the pool with my inlaws. It was actually quite nice, since I rarely take the time to visit the pool. I’m not much of a pool person, what with having to wear a bathing suit and all. :-O I grabbed a handful of books (mainly Bombshells) and a Su-Doku puzzle game. If you haven’t played Su-Doku, be prepared to become addicted. (Like we don’t have enough games that allow us to waste writing time. It’s a numbers game, which normally isn’t my thing, but this one is different. You only use 1-9. Check out the link to see how to play an online version.

I didn’t mention my thoughts on Serenity the other day, so I thought I’d add my comments here. I really liked the movie. It had a few flaws, but nothing that kept me from enjoying the flick. My inlaws had never seen an episode of Firefly and they loved it. The show had a nice mix of humor and action/adventure, which I love. I will definitely pick it up when it comes out on DVD.

Now back to games and time wasting techniques. What is your favorite thing to do to waste time when you should be writing? Mine is computer games…and now Su-Doku.

My inlaws are incredibly thoughtful. They go out to the pool, so that I have space to write. Unfortunately, I’m having one of those days where my attention span will not lock on a thing. And I mean NOTHING. I keep flittering from thought to thought and feel extremely anxious. Not sure why.

I have friends going through some rough times, which always makes me tense because I can’t do anything to help them. Grr… I’ve been reading a lot of blogs lately. Many recent blog entries seem to be focused on change. (Have I mentioned I’m not good with change?) That probably explains why I put up with things long after I surpass the miserable stage.

I’m curious…how many of you out there thrive on change? What is it that you like about it? If you’re like me, how do you get past your own discomfort long enough to move forward?

We decided to take the folks to see the famous Sedona red rocks. It was a bit of a drive, but well worth the journey. Picture this…bright blue skies, haunting sandstone formations, perfect temperatures, and wonderful company.

While there, we went on their famous Pink Jeep Tours. Our guide Michael was quite knowledgable and pointed out rock formations along with various edible vegetation. I’m now convinced I could survive in the desert (in the fall), if need be. Luckily, the fudge shop was nearby.

That’s it for now. I’m beat. Tomorrow we’re off to do a bit of shopping and go see Serenity. Hope your weekend is grand.

My inlaws have arrived. I’ll blog when I can, but it probably won’t be everyday. Hope you all have a terrific rest of the week and weekend. I’ll catch you soon.

Woke up at the crack o’ dawn to go pick up a rental car today. Need it so that dh’s folks can ride comfortably around town. Whoever had it before us (long story about how we ended up at the wrong rental location, so they didn’t have a vehicle ready) must have allowed their cat to crawl all over the truck. There were white cat hairs on all the seats and it smelled…interesting.

Now I have nothing against cats, other than being allergic to them, but I can’t imagine allowing my pet free range in a rental vehicle. Dh is running the SUV through a car wash, so that they can clean the car inside and out. I plan to Febreze it afterwards. Hopefully that will take care of the problem.

I’ve managed to get in almost 4K in the last couple of days on my WIP. I’d hoped to have it finished by the time my inlaws arrive, but I don’t think that’s going to happen. Mainly because I think it’s going to take over 5K to complete the story. We’ll see. I’m at the point where I don’t even know if it makes sense anymore, which got me thinking about a writer’s perspective about their own work.

I’m of the opinion that 99.9% of the stuff I write is total crap. I am not sure when this happened exactly, but I know it’s been going on for at least a couple of years. Somewhere along the line I lost my ability to look at my work objectively. I have moments when I think what I’ve written is pretty good, then that quickly deteriorates into a ‘what was I thinking’ mindset. I’m curious has anyone else experienced this or is it just me? (Snort! I won’t be surprised if it is.;)

I still haven’t managed to buy my AlphaSmart yet, but it’s coming. I got out of the house today and I’m actually glad that I did. I sat in a nearby coffee shop and had a little breakfast to go with my gallons of coffee. I also wrote ten pages longhand, read a couple of chapters of Goal, Motivation, and Conflict by Deb Dixon, and charted out a bit of book I have an idea for. All and all I’d say I’ve been pretty productive. I’m definitely going to have to do that more often.

Several people I know are getting ready to go out of town. I get a feeling the web is going to get quiet for a while. I suppose that’s not a bad thing with my inlaws coming to town.

While at the coffee shop I got to thinking about conflict in stories. In the story I started charting, my heroine is out for revenge. This is all fine, except the object of her ultimate revenge remains out of reach. I’m not sure how to handle this situation without manipulating the story in a way that I think would ring false. Have any of you ever ran into this problem? What did you do?