The constitutional amendment to preserve marriage. First, I wasn't aware that marriage was in danger of disappearing. Most of the people I know are, or have been, married. I'm sure it's the same with you. So why, the amendment?

It isn't about marriage, or even family values, though that's what they are hiding behind. This amendment is about fear. It's about distracting us with an emotional issue, so we won't notice that the economy is in the toilet. That we all know more people out of work now, then we did before President Bush got into office. That we have lost over two hundred men and women in Iraq. (I by the way am a hawk on foreign policy matters, but if you look at history, America has never won a limited war. War is like so much in life, either do it full out, or don't start.) And yes, I am aware that then President Clinton signed a Defense of Marriage Act in 1996 denying federal recognition to same sex marriages. But he did not propose amending the constitution. The constitution of the Untied States of America is supposed to protect the rights of its citizens, of all of its citizens, not just the ones you agree with.

This is the question for all of you? What do you think our goverment should be worrying about most? Homosexual marriage, or the economy? It seems to me that I'd rather have the goverment worrying about the economy, or maybe even the war, that who people are allowed to love. Am I over simplifying? Yes. But no more so than the people that want to pass this legislation.

Is marriage in danger? No. Is the old concept of it in danger? Yes, but not from same sex marriages. Marriage is in danger from the divorce rate in this country. Will this amendment change how divorce works in this country? Do you want it to? If they can legislate who a person can marry, by sex, then why stop there? Will it be religion next? Will the next amendment forbid marriage between Christian and Islamic, or Jewish, or Wiccan, or Quaker? Almost every amendment to the constitution has been to give us, the American people, more rights. One of the few that limited it was prohibition? Remember that one? All alcoholic beverages were illegal. That gave rise to another very American institution, organized crime. Yeah, other countries had it, even we had it, but prohibition allowed criminals to build empires. It was finally repealed, but it never worked. Why? Because we are a country that is based on freedom. Freedom to take a drink if we want one. Freedom to love who we love.

Do you want the government to be able to tell you who you can love?

They say they are protecting marriage, but marriage will be around long after this group of politicians has retired. They are looking for a scapegoat. Someone, or something to distract us from the issues. Don't worry that so many people are out of jobs, and we are losing more every day to foreign shores. Never mind that America is in a war that most Americans are confused about. Never mind, that the deficit is bigger than when Bush came into office. All that will be fixed, if we just make same sex marriage illegal. Does any of this seem reasonable?

Is any of this going to change because two people who are in love get to marry legally, and happen to be the same gender? I don't think so.

Funny, though, their tactic is working. Instead of wondering where our jobs are going, how do we afford a doctor's visit for our sick child, now people are debating homosexuality, and living in sin. Because you must be legally married to be protected under this act, so living together without marriage is about to go back to being a sin in America. Legally.

Let me just quote some of President Bush's remarks, "Marriage cannot be severed from it's cultural, religious, and natural roots." separation of church and state, what happened to that?
Quoting again, "America is a free society, which limits the role of government in the lives of our citizens." Really.

For the first time in American history, most people in the middle class, believe that their children will not have a better life than they do. Shouldn't that be the issue. Shouldn't that be what the current President is most concerned with? Shouldn't it?

Vote no on amending our constitution. Vote no on limiting any of our rights as a free people in the primary elections in your state. For most of you, it will be this up-coming week. All of you who feel safe; white, Anglo-Saxon, Christian, male; remember this. Once we amend the constitution to take away the rights of any of our people, it opens the door to amend it again, and take away more rights. If you vote yes, for this amendment, then you cannot complain in a few years when they take away our right to bear arms. You think they won't, just because you vote Republicans back in office. All it will take is a majority of their polled voters, their demographics that they want, to say, no guns. They will promise you anything right now. They want to be elected. But later, they'll want to be elected again. If you vote to limit other people's rights, then do you deserve to have anything less done to your rights?

This country stands on a very slippery slope. We are one vote away from opening up the Constitution of the United States of America, to begin to limit our freedom.

I do not always agree with people, and how they live, or how they worship, but I will fight for their right to live and worship the way they see fit. Because America is about freedom. Or at least that was what I was taught in school. Was I taught wrongly? Is America now more about fear than freedom. Do most Americans fear others that are not like them, more than they value their own freedom?

America, land of the free, home of the brave. Sounds good, doesn't it. America, land of hatred, home of the coward. They are counting on you hating homosexuality more than you value anything else. Do they know their demographics? Are they right? Do you hate someone else, more than you value your own freedom? Vote, no, not because you agree with the lifestyle, but because America is about freedom, and this amendment is about fear. Be brave, and send a message that the American people are not afraid to let everyone in this country be free.

It's a great day for writing.  Woke to thunder and lightning, and then the deluge.  A stormy, rainy day, dark and drear.  I've always loved days like this.  The sound of the rain has always been a comforting sound for me.  I'm not always as fond of storms, but this morning it was a good sign.  I'm writing a scene with Mistral today.  Mistral is a French word for wind, or a particular kind of wind.  Some of you may remember him from the end of the last Merry book, Seduced by Moonlight.  He is the master of storms, a sky god, stripped of most of his power.  The scene for today sees him coming back into some of that lost power, in the midst of a storm.  I'm planning on writing about lightning and thunder and rain and wind; and I wake up to three out of four.  It's a fairly still day.  The rain coming mostly straight down in heavy sheets.  The dogs were soaked when they came back inside from the yard.

A good day to stay inside and write.  A bad day for the commute to an outside the house job.  The morning radio was full of accidents.  St. Louis gets a lot of weather, but still most of the people try to drive the speed limit in the rain.  You've got to slow down in the rain.  It's slippery.  Everybody stay safe out there.

Gotta go.  I have a storm to write.  Making love by the flash of lightning, so that your bodies go in and out of focus, and what is shadow and what is light, changes magically, constantly.  Until you're not sure what you're really seeing, and what is only imagination. 

Okay.  I've had a little break.  Jonathon has helped me lick my wounds.  The dragon does not get to win.  I have recovered my flag from the field of battle, and tomorrow is another day.  As long as you don't give up, you don't lose, and the other guy doesn't win.  Whether dragon, ogre, or your own personal inner struggles. 

Jonathon, Trinity, and I watched "Fruits Basket"(a delightful anime), while we had dinner.  It's almost impossible to stay grumpy after watching an episode or two.  The main character makes Pollyanna look like a pessimist.  Combine that with cute guys, some truly wonderful characters, and real character development, safe for the whole family, and you can't beat it with a stick, and why would you want to?   

I'm going to bed now.  Peace, and for those that choose to take that as a political statement, don't.  Good night, pleasant dreams, be safe. 

Hey.  Eight pages yesterday.  Cool.  But only three today.  I got seven pages of notes, but I don't count notes.  Notes aren't pages that will stay in the book, and what stays is what counts. 

Obviously, I have not yet hit my stride on this book.  I mean twenty-four pages, eight, then three, oh, and a day of one in there on Saturday.  I'm all over the board, which means I'm still struggling.  It's just struggling with a higher page count, and I'm happy with the pages I've got.  They're good pages.  I'm just frustrated by the stop and go pattern.  Maybe I should dig out my calendar with the last Merry book on it and see if this far in I was still pages off on my count.  Maybe, I was.  Oh, well.  Gotta go do something else.  There are days when I can force myself to do more pages, and there are days when I know it's not going to work.  Today, the dragon wins. 

Hi all,

I'm trying out a new piece of software.  It is a voice recognition dictation software, and sometimes it works, and sometimes it doesn't.
It seems to have trouble with my voice sometimes and sometimes not.  I don't know what the difference is between when it works and when it doesn't.  One if I could tell it would change my speech patterns so that I wouldn't have this problem but since I don't know what the problem is...  I can't fix it.

Here's hoping I can get disputed software to work.

Tired today.  But I don't regret the pages yesterday.  I wrote until I was the rush left me.  If I had tried to stop it prematurely, the scene wouldn't have flowed right.  No regrets, but damn I'm tired.  I have finally dragged my butt into work after five in the afternoon.  Late, very late for me to begin work.

I've decided no page count today, just see what I can get done.  Just keep the flow going.  That's it.  The only goal for the day.  Though it means there will be a page count tomorrow, when I was going to give myself Sunday off.  Oh, well.  Trinity is with her father this weekend, and I need to make pages while we're a kid-free zone.    Why don't I take today off instead, you ask?  Because I promised myself progress today, and I will have some progress.  Never break a promise to yourself.  Never.   Not on anything large or small.  Keep your word to everybody, but especially to yourself.  So many of us seem to treat ourselves as less deserving of courtesy and kindness than strangers.  Don't short change yourself.  Even if I get only a page or two today, I will have done what I said I'd do. 

Truthfully, part of the problem today is where I left off yesterday in the story line.  The last chapter ended with the promise of sex, and today I have to deliver.  I believe, sincerely, that having sex in person is easier (not less fraught with emotional and physical difficulties) but easier to communicate to another human being.  When you run your finger tips tickling light across someone's skin, they feel it.  You don't have to worry that they don't understand what you've done.  Why you've done it in real life is often a puzzlement, but not what.  On paper, you have only words.  Only words to convey the wondrous sensations that play through the body during foreplay and sex.  Words are great, but they are no replacement for actual tactile sensation.  And on this one, a picture is not worth a thousand words, not really.  Even visual images don't convey what you experience first hand.  Don't even get me started on pornographic films.  I find them, almost without expectation, to fall far, far short of real sex.  I think it's because I have this attitude that there's got to be some emotional impact to sex, and most porn just doesn't seem to care about emotion, or personal relationships.  A friend of mine says that I make things too important.  I think coming together physically should be important, or why the heck are you doing it?  But that's just me.  Opinions vary.

I think one of the reasons that Merry is harder to write for me than Anita, is that Merry's attitude towards sex is different from mine.  Not more causal.  She's usually got life and physical safety of those nearest and dearest to her on the line.  No not more causal, but different.  I wanted Merry's culture to see sex as something beautiful, with no sin attached.  I manage to write it on paper, but I am from a back ground where the message that sex was dirty, men were evil, and our bodies were bad, was ground into me.  Gee, can you imagine what I'd write if I'd been raised to believe that sex was wonderful, men weren't the villains, and naked is just the way God made us?  A very different world indeed.

I've put Nine Inch Nails in the CD player (Downward Spiral).  It's often Merry's hard music.  As opposed to A YEAR WITH FROG AND TOAD, which seems to be A STROKE OF MIDNIGHT's Christmas music.  It does have a Christmas song on it, but it's just the music that makes me feel good even when I feel bad. 

I'm going to go try and put the right words on paper, to explain an experience that is so terribly personal.  So easy to write, his hand cupped my breast, but making a reader feel what those words mean . . . That's the hard part. 

I just reread the blog I wrote, and it wasn't until I was actually downstairs talking to  Trinity and Jonathon that I realized I needed to add something.  Twenty pages is my maximum a day, and eight is my minimum, so that means there must be an average, right?  Between ten and fifteen pages is about average.  Most books. 

I am now going to go do something that has nothing to do with my work, and everything to do with my family and friends.  Bye again.

Finished for the day.  Yippee.  You know how last blog I talked about getting into a rhythm?  How I thought I'd finally gotten my rhythm for this book?  So I could try for an eight page a day minimum?  Well, I think today proves that I've found my speed for this book.

Twenty-four pages today.  Yea! 

You know how I said, if you thought that eight was a lot of pages, that you didn't even want to know what my maximum page count for most books was?  Well, twenty is it.  I know, I know, twenty?  It is a lot.  But most books, once I hit it even for a day, I'll hit it more often than miss it.   The only caveat to that is sometimes I hit for a day, then I'm beat the next day and don't even make eight pages.  I never know if I've hit my stride until I try.  Today, I wrote until the muse had left me, that was twenty-four pages later, in two sessions.  I'm done, and physically beat, even my mind is tired.  But the book is alive in my head.  I know exactly what I'm writing tomorrow.  I'm looking forward to it, instead of dreading it.  That is usually a very good sign that I've hit my rhythm for a book.

This doesn't mean there will be no slow days, or days when I'd rather be gardening, or visiting the zoo, or anything but writing.  But it means that there will be more days when I'm eager to get to my desk, then days when I dread it.  Keep your fingers crossed that I hit eight pages tomorrow.  Because if I do, then I'm okay.  If I don't, well, damn.  

Exhausted, but happy.   Bye for now. 

Okay, today was the first day back to exercise since I hurt my leg.  My leg is not happy, but I did it.  Yea!.  I did six pages on STROKE OF MIDNIGHT this morning.  Yea, again!  I owe myself a minimum of two more pages this afternoon.  Eight is my usual min for a book, but at the very beginning of a book I don't press, because sometimes at the beginning you end up wandering around a little, getting your feet under you.  I feel like my feet are finally on firm enough ground to put my minimum out there and make it day after day. 

For all of you thinking that eight is a lot of pages for a minimum, well, you don't want to know what my maximum is for a book schedule.  There are plenty of writers out there that do two pages a day, and count themselves lucky to get it.  Four pages a day is a lot for most writers.  The average seems to be between two and five for professional writers.  Those who do it everyday like a job.  You do have those that work in bursts.  You know, twenty pages one day, two pages the next.  I may have a day or two like that in any given book, but those that write every book in bursts with days in between with nothing . . . I just don't understand how that works.  It would drive me mad.  For me a book gets into a rhythm, and that rhythm becomes a number of pages per day.  But hey, whatever works for you.

Gotta go catch lunch, then back to work for the pages I owe myself. 

I think I'm finally happy with the first chapter of A STROKE OF MIDNIGHT.  I've got lots of pages for later in the book, but the first chapter just kept elluding me.  I mean, it was close, but not quite there.  Now I'm happy with it, except for the very last line.  I'm very big on first lines and last lines, especially of first chapters.  The first line makes people start reading, but it's the last line of early chapters that keeps them turning pages. 
 
I just got my first sip of the first cup of tea of the day.  Ambrosia. 
 
I used to put off making the first chapter shine until I finished most, or all of the book, but lately I haven't had that luxury.  Lately, my editors want pieces of the next book to put in the back of the paperback of other books.  Or, we end up with a novelette like we did with INCUBUS DREAMS in the anthology, CRAVINGS.  A slightly revised version of the first hundred pages of INCUBUS DREAMS  is in CRAVINGS.    Revised to take out references to people that aren't in the first hundred pages much, that sort of thing.  But it was an interesting experience to have the front end of a book in editing when the back part of the same book wasn't finished.  Awkward, at least that's how it felt.
 
I agreed to it.  And I don't regret doing it, but more and more the beginning of a book is wanted in New York before the entire book is finished.  It has made me look differently at the first chapter.  I can't help but read it over and ask myself, is it really close enough to finished, close enough to being the right opening, for me to ship it off.  It has slowed me down in this book.  Because normally I write something, then move on, and rewrite the first chapter to something resembling perfection later.  But later, just keeps getting sooner.  It's made me more cautious, and cautious is not fast, caustious is slow.  Now that I'm about to nail the last sentence to the first chapter, I hope, fervently, that I will pick up speed.  A lot of speed. 
 
Gotta go.  Talk to you later. 
 
 

Hey everybody.  I actually left the cane upstairs by the bed today.  I kept it by me, but didn't really use it Sunday, so today I go solo.  It had been so long since I'd been on a cane that I'd forgotten how much it makes the rest of the body (that isn't injured) get out of alignment.  So that after a very short time other things begin to ache. 
 
I still remember after I broke my leg in college how funny it was to try and walk normally after I got off crutches.  And just as Anita's left arm is always getting hurt, it's my right leg.  It's been broken, burned, torn a muscle, and now pulled.  Though it had certainly done that before, just not this badly. 
 
I did mostly notes this weekend.  We had the kiddo.  I was too cripped up to do anything much, so I thought I should at least be in the same room with her, and be available.  We played tea party with her Disney talking tea set.  We watched endless Mrs. Bradley Mysteries.  It's a series from MYSTERY on PBS.  Trinity is very fond of it.  She watched the debue, "Speedy Death", three times in a row.  I begged for mercy when she wanted a fourth showing.  In between videos she would play upstairs, and over hearing some of it, she was playing murder mystery, or other aspects of the show.  She, as I did as a child, does not simply watch a show.  She redoes it with herself as a new character, or changes things.  I, and Jonathon, did the same thing as a child.  For some of us watching television or movies is not a passive activity. 
 
Sometimes there is something vauable in a movie, or a painting, or anything that you feel compelled to see again and again.  I've found in myself that anytime I fight this urge I usually regret it.  There is some weird creative process that is happening that feeds off the music, or the imagery, or the dialogue.  Something that in a few weeks, or months, or even years, will come out the other side of my subconscious in a totally new form.  Trinity has started to have an interest in the historical period of the Mrs. Bradley Mysteries, the 1920s.  She loves the fashion of the day.  It will be interesting to see if years from now, this seed bears fruit.  
 
The series is based on a series of books begun in the 1920s, by Gladys Mitchell.  I believe there are something like sixty books in the series.  I'm not positive of the number, but a lot.  We all like the show enough to try and find the books, and see if they are as charming.
 
Oh, by the way, this is not your typical cozy series.  Mrs. Bradley's view on marriage, "Marriage is something you should get over with early in life . . . like chicken pox."  View on the countryside, "Where animals walk around uncooked."  She's a lot of fun.
 
I'm going to try and exercise a little today.  We'll see how it goes.   Bye for now.
  
 

The plumber came and was a perfect gentleman. He apologized and admitted it was his mistake. He seemed mortified at the ruin of the papers. We have a restoration place coming to see what they can salvage from the ten boxes of manuscripts and notes. Oh, well. We're all alive, if not quite well. As Trinity pointed out no one was hurt, and she was right. The only thing that is truly irreplaceable are people and pets. Life is irreplaceable. Paper is just paper. Even with words on it. Some of this stuff had been sitting around for twenty years. I'll go on the assumption that I guess I didn't need any of it after all.

I am listening to the musical, A YEAR WITH FROG AND TOAD. Yes, it is based on that children's series. I had to put something soothing on. I've already put hot water on to boil, because when the chips are down, you make tea. I joke that I must have been British in a past life. I don't remember being British in a past life.

Why am I upset? The basement is flooded. Remember a few blogs back where I said the plumber stopped us in the middle of the road one morning? Well, the new plumbing sprang a leak. Like shooting water three feet from the wall leak. Sweet Jesus. It was, of course, in the part of the basement where old manicurists go to be stored. I don't know how much is ruined, but some of the manuscripts are oringals of the first Anita books, the first Merry books. Some are even unpublished books, unpublished series. That kind of thing. Not to mention years of notebooks from high school and college. So much for posterity getting my literary fingernail clippings.

I am so angry that I cannot help everyone sort through the papers. Not yet. I am so angry that I can't think clearly enough to look at the mess. All I can think is, that it's ruined. It's all ruined. Probably some of it can be saved, but what parts? Four copies of my ex-husband's high school year books are high and dry. I didn't even know I had them. But my early manuscripts were mostly ink-jet printers. Shit.

I want to rant and rave, scream and throw things, but I won't. Throwing things just means you break something that you'll probably want later. When the plumber comes this afternoon if he just apologizes and fixes it, then it will all be fine. If on the other hand, he tries to get more money out of us, or some such crap, the cynical part of me will wonder if the leak was really all that accidental. Unfair? Maybe, but what else am I to think? They caused the problem and they want more money to fix a problem they caused. Like the car mechanic who fixed the small problem I'd brought my car in for, then when he drove it with me, there was a new and louder rattle. He offered to have me pay to fix that to. I talked to his boss and explained that I wasn't paying for something they broke that day. They fixed it without complaining after that, but if I'd been less firm, they'd have made me pay for fixing their mistake (deliberate or otherwise). How many other people, read women, did that car place bully into more money? God knows. This was years and years ago, so the place isn't there anymore.

I will not be bullied. I treat others fairly, professionally, and I expect the same in return. If people are unfair and not professional, well, then, the gloves are off.

Hey, guys. Yesterday I looked through these books to satisfy myself on three points in the current book. DICTIONARY OF CELTIC MYTH AND LEGEND by Miranda J. Green; PENDRAGON by Steve Blake and Scott LLoyd; WICCA, a guide for the solitary practitioner, by Scott Cunningham; A WITCHES' BIBLE by Janet and Stewart Farrar; THE ANCIENT CELTIC FESTIVALS by Clare Walker Leslie and Frank E. Gerace; and THE ENCYCLOPEDIA OF HISTORIC AND ENDANGERED LIVESTOCK AND POULTRY BREEDS; plus a wonderful sight on the web about Irish Wolf Hounds, www.irishwolfhounds.org/history. This is one of the best organized web sights I've ever seen. The amount of research that has gone into and the logic of it's arrangement is a wonderful surprise after some of the muddy sights I've seen. (I don't do chat rooms, or roam for recreation, but I do some research on the web, if I can then confirm that information from at least two other sources, though if it's really cool and something more minor in plot, I'll settle for one confirmation. But the two confirmations must not refer to eachother as their source. You'd be amazed at how many people on the web do that.)

I found out why the Irish Celts ate more pork than beef. The wild ancestor of the domestic cow, the Aurochs, did not make it that far north in that area of the world. But pigs did. So logical, once you've done your research. Did I really need to know why pork is more popular in ancient Celt society than beef for the most part, no. But I did need to decide between one kind of visit by a supernatural food animal and another. I thought about sheep, cows, or pigs, but which one? Guess which one I'm using?

I won't detail the other question I was trying to answer because that will give too much away. Okay, the two questions I was trying to answer, but anyway . . . Gotta go make pages.

Hey guys. It's official, we're sick and injured. Jonathon has a virus, and I've pulled my gracilis. If you don't know what muscles that is, look it up. Believe me, if you've ever injured it, you won't soon forget. Gracilis, the name is almost pretty. Oh, well.

Didn't get a lot of pages done yesterday with the doctor trips and all, but I made some notes, and did some research, and I think most of it will get used today. Okay, most of the research I did yesterday will get used today. The research I did this morning before breakfast will probably not get used today, or perhaps at all. Research is often like that, you cast your net wide, and sometimes you catch something you can eat, and sometimes it's just pretty, but you've got to throw it back. I would say what book I finished research in, but I think it would give people the wrong idea about exactly what direction this Merry book is taking. I just don't want to fuel the speculation, when I'm almost a hundred percent certain people would take it in a direction that I am not going.

It's funny about these internet rumors. There seems almost no way for me, or Darla, or Jonathon, to convince people that we didn't say it, or what we did say, didn't mean that. People seem so much happier not believing us.

Gotta go make pages. I'm hoping this will be the last day I use the cane. Yeah, that's right, cane. I do very few things half-way, it's either full out, or don't start. Sigh.

Hey, everybody. Saturday was a bust. Jonathon and I were both sick. I've managed to pull a muscles in my leg. So the day was shot. But today is a new day, and though neither of us is feeling a hundred percent. In fact, I'm probably going to have to see a doctor about the leg thing. I'm pretty sure it's just a badly pulled muscle, but I'm not a doctor, so I'll let someone who is, look at it. Damnit.

Anyway, we're in the office trying to pull words out of thin air. People ask, how have you written so many books in such a short space of time? Answer, I feel like crap today, but I'm at my desk. I'm working. There are excuses I'll accept for missing work, but damn few of them. How do you write a book? By putting your butt in a chair and writing more days in a row than you miss. Sorry if this is brief, but I've got to save my energy for the book. Talk later.

Okay, everybody always asks, how do you write everyday? How do you do it? I usually write about how it works, but today, I thought I'd write about how it doesn't work. I have no idea why, but I just don't want to work today. I'm tired, but it's mainly that it's the beginning of the book, and I know how much work lies ahead of me.

This is my seventeenth book, or eighteenth. With that many books under my belt, I still have moments when the idea of filling hundreds of pages with words is overwhelming. Because not just any words will do. It has to be good words. Words that say what needs saying, words that fly and float on the page, not just sit there. A daunting task that.

I've switched music to my musical for this book. In an earlier blog I said that I choose main music for days when the writing goes well, then musical for days that it's not so good, and Christmas music for when the writing is going very badly. Read slow. What I've noticed on the days when the words drag themselves out like a tired prisoner crawling through mud, is that the next day when I reread it, it reads fine. My head may go ugly or dissatisfied, but the writing is fine. Good even, there are days when I just can't see it.

The musical, by the by, is BEAUTY AND THE BEAST, yes, Disney, original Broadway cast album. Why is it that people think because I write what I write that I can't like Disney stuff? Silly people. My husband and I actually like Disney movies, products and such. In fact I am currently wearing one of the souvenir shirts I got on our last trip to Disney World. I am secure enough in myself to wear a Dumbo tank top. How many other Goths can say that?

Okay, I just turned to Jonathon and asked, "Is that true, do I qualify as a Goth?"
"Not really," he said, "but it's closer than anything else."
True, I thought.
Okay, let's coin a new term. I'm a DisneyGoth. Which means there are days on end when I wear black, and I love my t-shirts with the scary sayings on them. Then I'll run into a spat of days where I need something a little brighter. I find that my t-shirt that has the Shakespeare quote for Vampire Theatre makes me happy to wear, and so does my Kaa shirt with it's slogan of 'Trust in me'. Why should I limit myself to just part of my personality? Why should anyone?

Gotta go make actual pages. Bye for now.

Hey everybody. I know Jonathon's been letting you know the power ups and downs of the last few days. Monday the fifth, we still had a houseful of friends, and there were just too many people to sit down and write. Then we had the big storm. No power on Tuesday the sixth. So A STROKE OF MIDNIGHT was begun at the local book store that has an internet access port-thingie. I did seven pages. They were good pages, but they weren't the beginning of the book. Probably the scene will be in the first third of the book, but it ain't the beginning. Sigh.

By Wednesday the seventh, we had power. Yea! I did ten pages, new pages, and that's not the beginning either. A version of that scene will appear later in the book. I'm almost certain. Nothing is ever completely certain in my books when I'm writing them. I get surprised a lot. Maybe that's what keeps them fresh for me, and for you.

So I had seventeen pages in two days, under less than ideal circumstances. Good, right? Well, yeah, and no. Yeah, I was happy that I'd managed to work with all the activity around me. Wednesday, we were invaded by the plumber, and the irrigation guys. To let you know how smoothly that went, when Jonathon and I tried to leave to get breakfast out, the plumber stepped into the middle of the road and blocked our way. He thought we were leaving for the day. He had to discuss that it was a much more complex job than they'd first thought. Isn't it always.

When the writing is going well you could probably have an entire marching band behind me and I wouldn't care. When the writing isn't going well, everything bugs me. Distracts me, makes me want to throw up my hands and say, "How can I write with all this crap happening around me." So the fact that I got nearly twenty pages with all of it happening was great. But none of it is the first page, the first paragraph, the first sentence.

I went back through my current writer's notebook. It is a stenographer's notebook, spiral bound. I've used this kind of notebook since junior high. I knew there were notes about this Merry book in there somewhere. I went through it last night, and found the notes I remembered. I actually wrote some of it on the plane going to vacation, and some of it on a bench with my little tropical dress and wide brimmed hat on. Jonathon was sitting beside me, with his hat and his tropical print shirt, reading a book. We sat on the bench and looked out at the water, with our bodies touching from thigh to shoulder; him doing his thing, me doing mine. But I sat there on our lovely vacation and wrote the beginning. It wasn't the beginning I wanted.

I realize that the reason I have seventeen pages, but no beginning is that I've been fighting myself. I want to begin with something more up beat, not so dark, but the book is the book, and it wants, or needs, a darker opening. So this morning I got up, and let the book have it's head. I've got about four pages, most of it typed in notes. But it's the beginning. It is the first line, the first paragraph, the first images. This is it.

I will have to get up and go exercise soon, but after lunch when I come back to it, I will continue from where the notes left off. I know what I'm doing next, and I know the scenes that will bridge to one of the scenes I wrote earlier this week. It will be a different scene for the beginning being there first, a better scene. And that is how you know that you're where you need to begin, because it makes everything that comes after make more sense, have more purpose.

Gotta go workout. Talk to you guys later, hopefully tomorrow. Bye for now.

We're Open again!

'nuf Said.

Jonathon

We're Closed!

Due to a power outage in the neighborhood, we are closed for business untill further notice. We can't access the internet to do orders or postage if we have no power.

Right now, Laurell and I are out at a local hot-spot to try and do some work. It isn't exactly the start on Merry 4 she planned.

got to go.

Jonathon

I thought I'd published this yesterday, but technology being what it is, and my tech skills being what they are, I'm having to redo the post this morning. I guess I'm not ready to fly solo on the tech quite yet. Next time I'll let Jonathon walk me through it.

America is the great experiment. We were the first country in history to break away from our parent stem, and declare ourselves independent. The war for independence was fought for unfair taxes, and real injustices against our parent country, England, but it was fought more, I think, because we simply wanted to be free. We were a new nation, a new people. We came here to this strange place, so different from Europe, and we made of ourselves a new people, with new customs, new attitudes. I'm not talking about the people in charge; the Washingtons, the Jefferesons, the Adams. I'm talking about the everyday people. The people that always do most of the living and working and dieing, when all those names that the history books remember, decide it's time to fight.

The very things that drove most of our ancestors away from their original countries was that, for the most part, they did not fit in where they were. They wanted to find a place that they could call home. A place where their dreams were not crushed, or spat upon. America is that place. Even after over two hundred years, we are still the land of opportunity.

Yeah, that's right. We are the land of opportunity. I still believe that. I still believe that here it is possible to start with nothing, and find your dreams. Lately, I've been hearing a lot of people say that they don't believe that anymore. That there isn't enough. Not enough money, not enough medical care, not enough love, not enough jobs, not enough. There seems to be a sense of unease lately. We don't feel safe. This doesn't bother me the way it seems to bother others, because I never felt safe. I had my own personal world shattered at such a young age, that I grew up with few illusions. So, I understand the fragility of the things around us. Most people pretend that nothing bad can happen, or actually believe that nothing bad can happen, so when it happens, they are crushed.

But are we brave and proud of our country, and our people, because nothing bad happens? Are we only proud Americans when there is no storm to weather? Is that it? Does everything have to be perfect for us not to be afraid? I hope not. Because perfection is an illusion, a lie for children. This country is not longer in it's infancy. We are working into our third century. That is the age that many countries choose to become imperialistic, expanist, take over your neighbors, build an empire. In a different time and place, America might have done that, but this is not a contrary for empire building. This is a century for finding new ways to build a legacy.

What do you do if there are not new shores to find, not new worlds to explore? First, of course, that's not true. There is space, and God, knows, I want us to go out into that wondrous void. I want to see in my lifetime that men, and women, will walk on Mars, and beyond. The oceans beneath us, are almost as unexplored, and some say more a mystery, than the night skies. There are new places to go, things to see. The difference now is that it takes scientists and training. You can't just find a seat on a boat and go. That leaves a lot of us out of this next great exploration.

What can the rest of us do to build a legacy? About fifty years ago American industry began to ship our manufacturing jobs overseas. Now, there is almost no way to make a decent living in the manufacturing sector. Now, American business is shipping our tech jobs overseas. Within ten years, that will be gone, too. Many of the businesses doing this are doing it for bigger profit margins, because somewhere in the last fifty years business began to think that they owed more to their investors, and their CEOs, than to their workers. Once upon a time you showed loyalty to your company because they showed loyalty to you, that seems a thing of the past. Now, having said that, some of the tech jobs are going overseas because by the time they get a local American worker trained up, the worker is already looking for something better, that pays more. For a fraction of the cost, they can ship it overseas and the people are happy to get the money. But if this is true of some smaller companies, then why am I hearing so many people with tech degrees out of work? They are eager to work, and most of them would not quite the job once they had it, not easily, or lightly. So maybe we need to have the companies that would hire local people if they could, being matched up with the tech people who would stay with the job.

We are getting people offering to work for us just for medical insurance. I find that very sad. We are one of the greatest nations in the world, but more and more of our people do not have health insurance. What's with that?

It is our responsibility as bosses to take care of our employees. That are not just light bulbs to be replaced when one burns out. If you pay them what they're worth, enough that they can live and live well, not just scrape buy. And if they don't have insurance through a spouse, you insure them. Now some small businesses can't afford, I understand that, but we've got to do something. We've got to take care of eachother. I'm sorry that this is full of such doom and gloom, but I don't mean it that way. I wish I had a magic solution to these problems, but I don't. But I do have an idea.

I am offically a CEO of a company. Small, true, but growing. I would like all the CEOs, or anyone else that is a postion of power over others, out there to make a promise in the next twelve months. Promise that you will take care of your workers. Your staff. Your people. We have to take care of eachother. Everytime a person looses a job, it means they can't spend money in the ecomomy. The economy can't recover if people don't have money to spend, or if people are having to decide between food and medicine. If you are in a positon where you can make this not be happening, do it. Make that difference in just one life, and see the good that spreads from it. View your employees as an asset, and a valuable commodity. Treat every person that works or comes in contact with your business as a plus sign on your books. And remember when reading through that profit report, that these are not just figures, or words, but they represent people, their families, the local ecomony. Talk to the people that are on the line of your factory, your office pool. Talk to them. Find out what their lives are like. Find out what's it really like to live in today's America. Even if you have only one person that you can make a difference for, make that difference. For every dollar you spend to make the standard of living better for your people, it isn't lost. It is a very definite profit. The relief in a man's face when he knows that he has enough money now to pay his bills, and then some. The look in a woman's eyes when she knows that now, she can pay for daycare, and still make enough to eat. For the next twelve months, try and see how much you can do for your employees, your staff. I think you'll find that if give loyalty and respect to the people that can't demand it from you, that you'll get loyalty and respect in return. And never forget that happier, healthier people, work better, have fewer sick days, and can make the entire atomospher of a work place shine.

I leave you with this thought. When you look in the mirror tomorrow morning, not think about the first meeting of the day, or do I look good in this suit, have I gained weight? Look in the mirror and wonder, am I good person? That should be a question that we ask ourselves often, because if the answer is no, then what else is there? No one talks much about honor, anymore. But I do. Are you an honorable man? If you aren't sure, then the answer is probably, no. Honor, goodness, helping others. Trot them out for the next twelve months, until the next fourth of July, just try them in the work place. If in twelve months you think it's all a bunch of balderdash, well, then fine. But I think you'll find, as I do, that doing what is right, pays off in ways that you never dreampt of, and being able to say, I am a good person, I am an honorable person, is a very good thing indeed.

Let's take care of each other in the next twelve months, because, United we stand, divided we fall, is not simply rhetoric.

Hey everybody. Okay, the essay is done for the hardback of LUNATIC CAFE. Now I have to update the acknowledgements. This was the book I dedicated to my daughter just after she was born. She's going to be ten this year. If I don't update it, all the talk about baby's and the pregnancy will make people think I had a second child, because the new hardbacks have the current year in them. So, to save some of the confusion we've had with other not so updated stuff, I have to change it. I hate changing acknowledgements, because I sort of agonize about them the first time around. Oh, well.

Good news. As I said earlier in the blog somewhere, one of the last things I do is to write the first chapter of the next book. I thought I'd fix the acknowledgements or the yabbies in LUNATIC, but instead the muse struck and struck hard. I sat down at a little before nine to putter until breakfast, and an hour and a half later I started getting light headed, because I never did get breakfast. But I did get fourteen pages done. The first chapter of Anita 13 is done. Now, not completely, I stopped short of describing Nathaniel and Micah at the end when they come in from jogging, but other than that, it's done. I printed it off, put a paper clip on it (one of those over-sized brightly colored ones), and put it in the file that is already in the Anita file drawer. The file that says, Anita 13 on it. Until today it was full of notes. Things that I didn't get to use in INCUBUS DREAMS, or even earlier notes that have been waiting for the right book. Notes, character sketches, incidents, stuff. But today, all the misc. stuff was joined by actual pages. Now, six months down the road when I've delivered A STROKE OF MOONLIGHT, when I sit down to start the next Anita book, I'll already be started. It makes things go so much faster. I am really kicking myself that last Merry book I ended with only notes for the beginning of the next book. Notes are great, but real pages are better. Lesson learned. I must do real pages at the end of each book, for the next book.

I still have sticky notes to clear up, and a list of things to take off the white board, that I can't just erase. But Monday, on schedule, I will start A STROKE OF MIDNIGHT. I've found the music to listen to, at least until six hundred pages or so. Most albums don't last to seven hundred pages before you get well and truly tired of the music. There are exceptions, but I'm already scouting for other music, just in case. I always work to music in the office, and I'm picky, different music for each book, though I have found that some of the early Tori Amos CD's have been able to come back online for another go here and there. It's finally been long enough. But the idea is when you hear this particular music you fall into the mindset of this book. Works for me.

I just started picking a candle to light before I sit down to write. I've never done that before, but on the rewrite for INCUBUS DREAMS, I needed something to cheer me along. I find candles very comforting. I picked a thick pillar candle and burned it until it melted to goo. Now I've shopped for another one that I can light on day one for Merry this time. Anything to keep the spirits up, I guess.

It also helps divide my time in the office and working, from the non office, non writing. A small ritual that helps me know that now it's time to write. Not look at dog rescue sights on the internet, or research stuff, but actual pages. Light the candle, you write. No lighted candle, it can be research. As I get more and more projects crossing my desk, I find it helpful. Helps me focus. Helps me protect my time. Candle lit, and it's like as long as it's burning I remember that my time is also burning away. That as the candle is consumed, so are the minutes of my day, and I need to use them wisely. Okay, that's it. Go play, or work, because I've got to go back to work myself.