Lazy Summer Sunday Afternoon

Went to church, had lunch with friends, my weekly trek to the paint store for supplies, so I can use their coupon. I'm all about saving, but I'm a terrible spend thrift. Back home at the lake now with the sun shining and the mahogany leaves of our Red Maple moving slightly in the gentle breeze. I feel like I'm in a tower, my very own tower where I can do whatever I wish for as long as I wish. What a delicious feeling.

I've just finished the second pirate story in my Pirate trilogy and have the third one outlined and ready to start writing. The characters are fun and a little crazy. Charlie's all about survival and Jackson is just plain pissed off because the woman he'd been screwing and planning to marry has decided to marry someone else. It's not love at first sight when Jackson and Charlie meet, but it is first lust. Whoo, hope I can get them to behave - or not, which would be more fun.

So my lovely week is planned out ahead for me. I'll go to the gym in the morning for water aerobics and go to my paint class in the afternoon, make a salad for my husband and me and write my little head off. Lovely week ahead. My little companion Tsih Tzu will most likely be at the foot of the twin bed looking out the window guarding his domain. He thinks this feels like being in a tower too.

Life and Death

Nothing makes us cling so intensely to life than facing death, a near death experience of our own or the lose of a loved one. Such has been the case for me recently when I lost a good friend whom I had known for forty years. She was a young woman, active in her church as well as her sorority and other organizations. Gracious and graceful in her handling of many events, she was the president of our sisterhood. I never heard her say an unkind word to anyone or about anyone. She was brave through a battle over several years against cancer, never seeking or wanting pity. To think she's no longer here is too difficult to contemplate.

So I find myself saying prayers of thanksgiving to God that I'm still here, that my family members whom I love so much are alive and well. Then you feel selfish for having such thoughts, then you tell yourself, not to rejoice would be selfish. God has given us life and even in death, we must celebrate life.

Finally, that takes me to my writing. There I am god. I consider whether my characters live or die and I've done so callously in the past, but in the future I will think twice about the importance of life and even in the importance of death and how it will affect the characters in my books. For when a reader picks up your book, she's looking for more than a few hours of entertainment, she's expecting to find honesty in your words, in the emotions you evoke on behalf of your characters. We live through our characters, writer and reader alike, so there can be no sham, just as there should never be in life and never is in death. Those are moments of such complete honesty, when we must face our mortality and look to God for our salvation, when we must face the lose of that loved one and let them go.

Never give up is a term we hear often. It's said with such fierceness. Never give up! But inevitably and finally, we must give up, give up our loved ones and in doing so, learn to give up our own life in the end and face the unknown of the grave, trusting that God is truly there for us. Never give up until you have to, then we must take a page from those who go before us. We must learn from their gracefulness and bravery. We must learn to give up.

Hounds of Summer

Or is that Dog Days of Summer? Either way it's blazingly hot. We're tucked into our cottage on the lake, with the air conditioners blaring. Who cares if the flowers are blooming, the warm lake breezes blowing, the water's warming and the boats are ready to go. Give me cool, cool, cool, dammit.

It's been a crazy spring, my grandson came and stayed with us a few days before going into Basic training for the Navy. My 7 year old grandson is visiting and he's become a computer nerd, until we mention boat ride and then he comes out of his funk. My 18 mo. grand daughter is visiting and loves the lake, the boats and being outdoors. We all have to run and watch her so she doesn't go near the water.

In between all the visiting and my outside activities (I do a lot of paint classes.) I've been busy with edits on my Ellora Cave book, DIRTY LITTLE SECRETS. Haven't been given a pub date on it yet, but the edits are finished so it can't be long now.

My first Pirate book, VIRGIN PIRATE will be out July 9 and the second one which I just finished writing HER PIRATE LOVER will be out in mid October. As I said I just finished writing HER PIRATE LOVER and fell in love with the characters myself. Each time I write a book, I grow to love my characters but Hawke is a sexy, sexy man, but then so is Trey Carlylse from VIRGIN PIRATE and the women in both books, Nellie and Abella, know just how to handle men. Wish I knew as much as they do. Now I'm ready to start the third book in the PIRATE BOOTY series. I'm already starting to love the characters in this book, which will be American pirates. I think I'll call it, THE PIRATE BRIDE. Charlie is another female pirate who's met her match in Buccaneer Jackson Payne. Jackson spends most of his time trying to save Charlie from herself and the American government who's determined to rid the waters of the infamous Pirate, Red Charlie. When Jackson discovers she's a woman and what a woman, he looks at things a lot differently. I think I'll have fun with this story.

In the meantime rewriting another book, Dark Paradise about a girl named Molly who got bit!!

So that's how I'm spending my hot summer days. How are yours going?

Tootling Along

Some days are just plain ordinary days that don't bring any special discoveries and no surprises, yet those days are just as precious in our lives and one with all sorts of rewards. Today is such a day, but as I look back over the past few days I think of all the things I've learned.

For instance, we had a wonderful speaker at our monthly writer's meeting who showed us how using astrology and sun signs can help us understand our characters better. I've never been one for following sun signs or horoscopes, but our speaker had us do some workshops using horoscopes and lo and behold I found myself delving deeper into my charater. This is definitely a source I will use again to better understand where my charters are coming from and where they're going.

Then I learned that I must tighten up on some of my writing. I got a wonderful rejection letter that spelled out what my weaknesses and strengths are. Point of view is something I've been rather sloppy about, changing from the hero's pov to the heroine's pov. It's fun to make that transition quickly from one paragraph to the next. You can fully exploit what the characters are feeling especially in a love scene, but though I may enjoy it, a reader might become confused by the changing povs. My new goal is to really pay attention to that. I think my writing might be stronger as a result of it. It's easy to get sloppy, but if you want your writing to become stronger, you have to always be mindful of what you're doing.

So that's my learnin's for now. I expect every day I'll go forward, learning and doing better. After all I've only been writing for 30 years and you can't learn everything in that amount of time.

Zowie, Saturday

The second Saturday of the month is always one I look forward to. We have our regional writer's meeting, we being known as the Grand Rapids Regional Writer's Group. We eat, even desserts or maybe especially desserts, have our meeting and a program or workshop. Today was on p.o.v. in forming characterizations given by one of our published writers. Really well done. We had some hands-on exercises which were a lot of fun. We do a lot of laughing in our meetings. Writing is such a solitary job that when a bunch of writers get together, we go a little over the top.

We're going to a Writer's Retreat in Fremont next week-end, nearly all of our chapter will be there. We'll order in food, drink margaritas and too much wine, eat too much, write a lot, laugh and tell dirty jokes and be really loud and say outrageous things, and get very little sleep. We do this twice a year and it's a nice break away from our normal routines. Some of our members work so hard, turning out several manuscripts a year as well as editing. They are really devoted, dare I say, even driven. They deserve every ounce of success they have.

So this week, I will follow their good example, and work very hard on finishing this third book, maybe even starting another, and plan my week to get my house and yard work done so I can go off with a clear conscience. And Next Saturday? I'll be laughing and writing and sipping and nibbling and talking and laughing and ---having a really good time. Being a full time writer is not bad, not bad at all.

Zowie, Saturday

How to get yourself in a lot of trouble!

Wow, what a lot of fun I've been having. Sold three books, working to get the third one completed. In the meantime, having to do edits on a computer system that's new to me. Learning a lot about using the computer, but still way behind on what I need to know.

Today I have to put away my computer and do some normal stuff, like clean out my refrigerator (a must) something died in there and when I open the fridge door I have to open windows. It shouldn't be too hard to find the culprit because the fridge is nearly empty. Another chore. Go shopping. Then I'm not even going to talk about the floors that need vacuuming, the tv that needs dusting and a bunch of other stuff. At least I've kept up with the dishes and the laundry. I hate having dirty dishes around because I know who has to clean them and I do like clean underwear so that's a priority for mine.

So today I'm off to the stores to spend money I don't really have and then it's a day of clean, clean, clean. Tomorrow I'll reward myself by going to critique where I'll hear what other writers are working on and get their opinion on my own work. We'll exchange ideas and share information about the writing world and all the while we eat and drink and are otherwise merry. We go to a wonderful Italian place that has great food and lets us sit in a corner for hours with only occasional refills. I guess putting away my computer for a day is not so bad after all.