American Title Contest

My friend Lindsey Brookes made it to the second round of the American Title contest! Yay Lindsey!

Please help support her. Voting for her is as simple as sending an email to webmaster@romantictimes.com and putting OPERATION: DATE ESCAPE in the subject line. You can get more information from her website: http://www.lindseybrookes.com/

To busy to write? Nearly, but not quite.

I've been working my mouse finger to the bone lately, and not in the way you're thinking. First off, I designed my first ever book cover! It's for my longtime friend, critique partner, and yes, fellow Gerry Butler fangyrl Leslie Dicken. Leslie has three books available right now in addition to Taboo, so please check her out.

I also just recently finished the site design and WordPress CMS installation for Romance author Tawny Weber. Next up, a template design for Renee Luke, another Romance author who also just got a deal to write under her Young Adult genre pseudonym Nyomi Scott.

Thanks Leslie, Tawny and Renee for keeping me busy and therefore out of trouble!

And still, no Gerry

People magazine just published their "Sexiest Man Alive" issue and it's once again George Clooney. No surprises there, and for the most part the others listed in the issue are the usual suspects with perfect cheekbones and physiques.

Salon magazine has come out with their own list and it includes the likes of some of my favorite celebrities who didn't make it on the People list: Alton Brown, Neil Patrick Harris, Richard Dawkins, Alan Rickman and Jon Stewart.

And yet, Gerard Butler isn't on either list. What's up with that? What's wrong with you people? You'd think his role in critically acclaimed Dear Frankie would have gotten him some street cred. Of his role as the Tall Dark Stranger, he said:

"That’s what I love about this. If you just tell the story of what the story’s about, then it sparks curiosity but I think it also arouses suspicion, as you say, that it could be overly sentimental. But it so isn’t. And I think it was all about doing the inner work and then underplaying everything. And so I know for me, that’s what I was constantly thinking was just, “Bring it down. Give it truth. Give it realism.” Because if you can do that and an audience can relate to you as a human being who’s not purely good or purely bad, but he just is who he is, then that’s what sucks you in. In a way, that’s what sucks you in to this beautiful little fairy tale."

Salon recognized this bit about geeky chef Alton Brown, but ignores Gerry?

"...when he explains in serious, caressing detail the differences between a chewy cookie and crunchy one, it's downright hypnotic. And when he strides around kitchen stadium as commentator of "Iron Chef America," he's a reassuring authority, an eager fan, and a conspiratorial insider letting you in on the secrets of taming fire itself. He's the ultimate caveman and the uptight professor, and if that's not a twofer fantasy figure right there, I don't know what is."

Don't get me wrong, I adore Alton. He's at the top of my Tivo To Do List. I even know the inside jokes about the puppets. But we need to tell People magazine to get with the hunky guy program.

If you're a writer, you write.

Jennifer Jackson has a post on quitting the writing life, and randomfreshink has posted an inspiring response. The last few paragraphs really struck home for me, but most especially:

"You write because the people in your head won't shut up until you do--and you really do not want therapy. You write because you probably should get therapy. . .

"You make time to write. You steal lunch hours and early mornings and late nights. You fit writing into note pads on short breaks. . .

"You also avoid writing because it's like a fickle mistress who won't always put out, but who knows that unpredictable reinforcement is the best way to form an addiction. You also want to avoid writing because sometimes it's just bad, and that breaks your heart. And you can never write anything that's as good as the images and ideas in your head because words stumble."

Keep writing. Don't ever give up.

The Pressure of the Time Crunch

The pressure of trying to write as much as I can in a half an hour over my lunch seems to be working for me. When I've tried to write with more time on my hands recently the words just aren't there. So I'm going to continue to write in short bursts, like a mad race to get as much down onto paper as I can in 30 minute intervals. We'll see what happens. So far I'm up over the 4K mark. I don't have high hopes that I'll me the NaNoWriMo challenge, but at least I'm writing and it feels good!

Last night I got a bit more insight into my hero, Jake Tucker, when I wrote the first scene in his POV. Here's an short excerpt:

Jake jumped to his feet and swung toward the Specter. He used his momentum to propel both of them toward the wall, toward the portal. He rode that dark wave down to Hell and he'd keep going until they were all gone. There would be more after Catherine and now Sullivan too. He hoped he could stop them all.

I hope it gave you the shivers too. :)

NaNoWriMo Progress

I've written over 3,000 words so far! Yay me!

In honor of this crowning achievement, I give you a recent article from Wired called "Very Short Stories," where they challenged established writers to write a story in six words. My favorite is, of course, from Joss Whedon:

Gown removed carelessly. Head, less so.

I know these are supposed to be stories in and of themselves, but some would make excellent opening lines. So in that spirit, I offer the opening of Ghost Hunter, my project for NaNoWriMo:

In the winter of 1985, when I turned 14, I died. An accident, I fell through the ice on the lake we Sullivans had skated on for generations. When they pulled me from the water I had no pulse.

The bright white light, the angels singing, it's all just endorphins flooding the brain at death, right? I want to believe in what science says, but when I'm honest with myself I know that it was indeed the Otherside. And it's never let me go.

Remember, it's a draft. Go easy on me!

Hat tip on the Wired article: John Hawks blog.

Deep Peace of the running wave to you

I used to co-moderate a Celtic listserv called The Celtic Well. I still maintain my old Celtic web site and occasionally receive e-mails with questions about all sorts of Celtic stuff gu leor.

Today I had a question about the source of an "ancient Gaelic blessing" that I had heard of before, but didn't immediately know the source. So I had to do some researching. It's easily titled Deep Peace and is an ancient eolas or charm of healing put on the fairy fool Amadan by the blind poet Alan Dall. It was supposedly translated by Fiona MacLeod and can be found online here in her "Under a Dark Star, Volume III."

Bill Douglas also did a choral version of it in his eponymously titled Deep Peace CD, which I have and thought of immediately. Anyway, it's deeply inspiring, pensive and restful at the same time, and I think quite appropriate for this time of year. An excerpt:

Deep peace of the running wave to you,
Deep peace of the flowing air to you,
Deep peace of the quiet earth to you,
Deep peace of the sleeping stones to you!

Le meas.

Lunch Writing Bonanza

Holy carp I wrote almost 1,000 words in a half hour. There's hope for me yet!

Because I'm Insane, That's Why

I signed up for the National Novel Writing Month challenge, and you'll see from the graphic in my sidebar that my progress isn't enough to even show up on the graph yet.

Yeah, I'm nuts. But I need to do something to jumpstart my writing, which isn't happening at all right now. I probably won't hit the 50,000 word challenge, but I'll have written something, anything. So, it's my lunch hour and I'm off to write. Wish me luck.