Friday Futzing

"You've got to get up every morning with determination if you're going to go to bed with satisfaction." — George Horace Lorimer

I have to wonder where all my creative juices have gone lately. I am not the type of person who typically runs out of things to say, but I have.

Could it be the foot or so of snow we got (or the foot or so they're predicting for us AGAIN on Sunday?) that has frozen my brain.

Possibly lack of sleep due to puppy puke (who knew if your dog eats half a Nylabone -- that isn't really supposed to be ingested -- that she would vomit two nights running... and ONLY nights, not days).

Maybe it's trying to memorize the Declaration of Independence alongside my DD? Have I used up all my brain cells on that? (It's a very interesting document, BTW. Since they use terrifically complicated words, I had to break it down for the DD, and was very interested in what the document really says. You should take a very close look sometime).

Having to deal with DH being home. And having to deal with the idea that DH will be on a two week vacation beginning on the 20th... getting the DD to focus on school when her routine is off is horrible. And, no, we don't take holiday's off from school because we only do a four day school week.

Who knows what is causing my brain juice to dry up. I only hope I find a refill soon.

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In other news, I submitted an excerpt for my Samhain Publishing novel, "One Love For Liv" yesterday. I really hate selecting an excerpt. It needs to be interesting, and make the person want to read more, but not give away any plot secrets. And it should stand on its own, not requiring the reader to have more information to understand what is going on. I agonized over this. I finally asked for input from Michele, who hasn't read the book and makes a decent cold reader. She opted for door..er...excerpt number two.

I have high hopes that the "coming soon" info will be up on the site soon, at which point I may faint dead away.

And, the novel itself comes out sometime around February or so. I'll let you know when I have a firm date. I can't believe how quickly everything has happened. Woo!

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I did work on some writing yesterday. It was a flat out miracle. But, I made some time to work on "Kitchen Matches" a little more. I hope I've made the hero a little less abrasive (the editor who rejected it said she didn't like him in the beginning AT ALL and just couldn't get past that later), the heroine much more attracted to him. I've added little touches, and smiles and things that make you tingle *G*. The joy of writing romance.

The editor also asked me to add more emotion. I gotta be honest, that's not something I hear much from folks who read my writing, so it surprised me. I've been trying to focus on why this story felt so distant to her. I've crawled into the heroine's head a little more, made her more aware of everything that's going on (hence the tingles, LOL).

I've actually decided I want to lengthen it and then submit to a different, more popular line. So, things need to be adjusted. This can't be as sweet. One of the criteria of the line is this:

In each full-length novel, there must be one fully consummated love scene. In the case of short stories, if this isn't realistic for the plot of the story, then the physical encounters must be extremely hot and let the reader know how hard it is for that couple to keep their hands off each other.

So, although the H/H have their fair share of smooching, I need to heat things up a little more.

I can do that. I actually really enjoy writing super-tense, hot, coitus interuptus. I love to *almost* let my H/H get together. It's oodles of fun, for me anyway. Not so much for them *G*.

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There's a 16% Chance You've Been Abducted By Aliens

There's virtually no chance you've been abducted by aliens. But there's always hope for the future!

What Are the Chances that You've Been Abducted by Aliens?

LOLOL... Even the aliens don't want me.