Tag Archives: writing

The Nose Knows

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Dog noseI’m currently reading Blood Cross (in the Jane Yellowrock series) by Faith Hunter.  The main character is a Native American shifter, and she hunts rogue vampires, solves the central mystery primarily by her heightened Mountain Cat sense of smell.  Jane is smart and tough.  She researches, interviews, sorts through a tangled web of facts and hunches to find the bad guy, but her nose is how she tracks and identifies the human, animal, and supernatural world.  Hunter is a writer who sets a scene with a good deal of description.  She’s very sensory in her style, but nowhere is this more evident than when her main character is describing the smells around her.  It made me think a bit, because as a writer I don’t always consider smells.  Admittedly, my main character isn’t a shifter.  She’s much more visual and tactile in her view.  Still, as I go back and think about my novels, I realize the only time I get into aromas is when they’re critical to the scene or to reinforce the setting. Is it because my own sense of smell isn’t exactly the best in the world?

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The Time Spent Not Writing

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berriesI’m finding that the time I spend not writing is as important as the time spent with fingers on the keyboard.  I’ve always known my daily jog adds to my creative process.  It’s like meditation – feet hitting the pavement in rhythm for five miles.  My mind wanders in a stream of consciousness fog and scenes from my novel unfold before me like a movie.  Most of my writing is now done between the hours of 9pm and 11pm – after the kids have gone to bed and I can finally focus.  It’s become my routine: Kiss the kids goodnight, clean up dinner dishes, pour a cold beer, write.  But it’s what happens throughout the day that determines how well that writing session goes. Continue reading →

What’s In A Name:

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Her name is Rio and she dances on the sand. . .

Her name is Rio and she dances on the sand. . .

In spite of all the excess imagination in my household, names don’t come easy to us.

There are a few exceptions.  One of our sheep is named “Vehicle”, and our late Shepherd mix was named “Pye”.  When my then 5 year old son named him, I wasn’t sure if he meant “Pie” as in Apple Pie, or “Pi” as in the mathematical number, of “Py” as in Pyrex.  I went for Pye, and like to think he was a little bit of all three.  Our one cat, 42, was named after a Hitchhiker’s Guide To The Galaxy reference.  Rio was named after the Duran Duran song (those last two were my doing), but other naming endeavors have produced such duds as “Fluffy” and “Baby Kitty”. Continue reading →

Not A Second To Spare

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clockIt’s been a hectic spring for me so far.  ELVEN BLOOD was released April 1st, and I’ve been working my substantial rear end off with book promotion.  I’ve got a few ads running, and a giveaway at Goodreads. (Click HERE and enter to win one of five signed paperback copies of ELVEN BLOOD – don’t forget to put it on your bookshelf to read!)  Then there’s the blog tour – 16 stops from April 29th to March 24th.  Keep your eyes on my blog and on my Facebook page because there are some awesome prizes for commenters along the tour.  Grand prize for the tour is a Kindle Fire with an ELVEN BLOOD cover skin.

So, yeah – author stuff, the million kid activities requiring Mom Taxi service, then my work decided to explode with a landslide of projects and demands.  Everything hit at once, and with the beautiful weather I’m trying to get out and run, horseback ride, and expand out strawberry patch.  Writing?  Last week I worked ONE day on my next novel.  One.  Yes, I did pound out 3,500 words, but that’s still far below my usual weekly goals.  What’s a writer, a corporate gal, a mom to do when there’s just not enough time in the day?

How do you structure your day?  Does the writing come before the tweets and blog posts, or after?  Do you occasionally toss the laptop aside and sacrifice daily writing goals to bake in the sun or play a quick game of catch with the kids?

Give Me Some Space

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All this will soon be mine- minus the papers and irritated man giving me the stinkeye.

All this will soon be mine- minus the papers and irritated man giving me the stinkeye.

I’ve been following Jennifer Crusie’s Argh Ink blog posts for some time now, living vicariously as she remodels a breezeway between her kitchen and garage into an office – a writing haven.  I, on the other hand, have a parlor. 

You read that right.  I sit on a loveseat in the parlor of our 1820’s farmhouse, with my laptop on a coffee table in front of me, or more often, on my actual lap.  Which would be fine if I were just writing, but I’m also working from home most of the week at this point.  So I’m on a couch, 8 hours a day, then another 3-4 hours in the evening.  Yes, you’re probably imagining what that’s doing to my ever expanding ass, but that is for another blog post.  Right now I’m talking about my need for an office, or at least a desk-like piece of furniture in a less highly trafficked area of the house.  Continue reading →