verbosity

been blogging like there's no tomorrow this week. like I'm gonna miss something if I don't happen to put it down here...

maybe I need to get to some real work, no?

uh, no. feeling like my brain's mush, and I have a few ideas why.

thanks to all for the lovely comments; the semi's was a gift, like this whole bucket of worms (or is it words?) and in a week the top three will be named. there's a thread where the rest of us out of the running have been hanging, and a couple of names have popped up, authors I wasn't hoping to see there...

I hope they are pulling my leg, but if not, I'll hunt those folks down, and will give those novels a nod when the top three have been revealed.

in the meantime... I went to the write-in yesterday and frittered away two hours on the internet. the last few days I have felt utterly unmotivated. before the call didn't come, and I think it's a post-novel wipe-out that built over the last two months.

big languorous sigh... I had planned to pen Belated in April since last autumn, but Alvin's Farm slipped through in March, and between that and the contest and Jay's prom season closing up on Saturday, I am feeling like toast mentally. dead, dry, burnt with no Nutella, Marmite or jam.

actaully, I was never a big Marmite fan; what an intersting concotion!! however I do love Nutella...

but not even a wide swipe could revive me. (well, maybe it could...) I'm thinking today I'm going to take a drive over the hill, hit Capitola, go to Gayles and revel in a latte, something yummy, being close to the beach. I grew up in the middle of the Sacramento Valley, hours away from the ocean. somehow that element lifts me, even if I'm only sitting in a cafe a mile away.

I know this is temporary. next week, heck, maybe even tomorrow, I'll be pulling up some poor document, start the reading/editing process. I did look over Belated, the last real bit of work I accomplished. the first 5-6 chapters are, well, breathless. then it settles some, and I was so dang GRATEFUL! (thought that whole thing was gonna suck all the air right outta me!) been trying to be more deliberate with the beginnings of books, not cram every living last thing in; Belated needs some work in that department. the fight scene between the MC and his nemesis really is pretty good, if I can brag a minute. neither man is very, well, physical, and the blood isn't drawn so much with fists as with verbal arrows.

that's chapter 18, 19, nearly at the end, so yeah, by then I'd gotten my head around that sucker. anyone else find a book really comes together halfway through; characters are finally gelling, the pace is apparent, settings familiar and sometimes it begins to write itself.

if nothing else I learned that TIGHT plotting might not be for me. the beginning was so well wound that I wondered if anyone in it was able to breathe. again, a lesson learned.

and, isn't that what all this is about? I love to write, but what I learn about myself along the way... good grief! that wasn't in the cards...

(or was it?)