Brothers and Daughters

What a lovely day! I've spent time with my girl and time with my brother and we ate boiled shrimp. I'm not sure you can ask for a whole lot more.

Oh, yeah--finishing those galleys!

Tomorrow--more shimp, and choosing the house and the neighborhood in which my ghost and his family will live. ;-)

Is it Tuesday Already?

I'm working on galleys for my June book, Her Reason to Stay, and I'm still hard at the deadline for my November book, tentatively called Forbidden. I'm enjoying the holiday flourishes, there.

Back at the coffee shop today so I can post. Can't stay long. I'd love to finish the galleys in a hurry.

It's always a relief to read the story at this stage and find it sounds smooth. Although, there are always occasional mistakes that make me wonder how I missed them in all these reads.

It's a lovely day. The clouds are moving in. The courthouse is being dismantled so I'm a little distracted because I wonder what comes next with it.

I'm sitting in the front of the coffee shop and across the way in the fabric store, a vintage Singer sewing machine, complete with treadle and case is showing off quilt fabrics in the window. My mother made my school uniforms on one just like that when I was a little girl. I was so tall and skinny she had to make them. If the waste fit, the skirt was too short, and if the hem was right, the skirt fell to the floor. But Mom made them perfectly.

And I'd better get quit hanging around in the past and head back to my own what-comes-next!

Saturday

When I started this blog, I thought, how tough can it be? I yammer so much, people get sick of listening to me. What fun to toss all this extra yammering into cyberspace, where no one can roll eyes, or offer the ever popular whirring of fingers, meaning "Any chance we'll get to the end some day?"

Well, I've been staring at this blank screen for some time. So, without any further ado, or whirring of fingers, hope you're having a fun weekend and you aren't reading my excuse for saying nothing.

What makes you love a character?

Obviously, I want readers to love the characters I write. I read books. I watch movies. I listen to songs. There are characters I love. Columbo, of all characters, gets under my skin. I'm a huge fan of the running quirks. Quirks make me empathetic. Emma, in Jane Austen, gets me, even though, in the book, she's not a kind character. But she learns to be human. Human gets me.

Last week I watched a movie I've been avoiding. We are Marshall. I didn't want to see it because I'm not a big fan of death and grief for entertainment, but I jumped to a conclusion that was totally wrong about this movie. My brother-in-law said I should try it, and he's kind of a smart guy, so I thought I'd risk a few minutes.

It was a writer-changing experience. When you work with stories every day, you have a hard time letting go of those instincts to enjoy one someone else is telling. Somewhere during this amazing, tender, beautiful, true story, I realized the writers, the director, the actors all loved this story the way I was loving it.

It could have been melodramatic, heroic to the "look, I'm a hero" degree, symbolic, whatever. But it was a retelling of an event that happened to people who found a way to live despite more loss than I can even conceive, and they did it with the kind of courage only life can summon. And dignity.

So, maybe the key to sharing that kind of love is feeling it.

Icy Cold, and Yet...

Heading back to the beach! Yay. I'll be working. My girl will be reading. In between, we'll be eating. ;-)

Now, to persuade her to drive, so I can work on the way!

What to do in case of a disaster?

Not a big disaster. My headphones are broken. Well, just in one ear, but I'm working mostly at the coffee shop these days because the deadline's roaring this way and the beloved's afraid to go out in the cold. :-) And he's lovely, but distracting.

Well, I must have noise to work by, but conversations tempt me. Turns out when I'm really busy, my first instinct is to eavesdrop. (A shocking self-revelation because normally I believe in minding my own business.) Anywhooo, I take along a movie I've seen a billion times, so I can hear the comforting noises in my head without listening, or I put in music, but I have a feeling I'm listening with one ear and listing to the good side.

They should be paying for the show! Gotta get back to the book! I wish there were a lopsided writer-woman icon. ;-)

Ohhhh, a firetruck, and several folks running out of shops to see where it's going. Here's a hope that the place and people they're going to rescue fare well.

This may be an all-day affair

I'm blogging from home. I won't whine again about our service.

We may have snow today. The sky is blue-gray and full of possibilities. Snow and sleet and rain, everything you need in a drought. I promised a friend I'd stop the please-snow dance, but I can't help hoping my previous efforts have already done their work. Actually, we're sure to have rain, but I'd love a few flakes of snow, too.

And I think I'll make chili.

Well, now to hit post. And go take a shower.