Category Archives: friends and family

The writing cave

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Poking my head out for a minute…

Is the Harry Potter movie still out? I lost track of it after mum stood me up in Vegas to play the penny slots instead of going on a movie date with her dear daughter.

“Bah!” I could hear her saying. “You can watch Harry Potter anywhere.”

Back to the cave. I’m supposed to start fast drafting a novella today and I need to ship the D&P manuscript to Little Sis along with some form of bribe. Nothing edible. The last bribe was a disaster when the squeezable bottle of condensed milk busted open in the box. Don’t ask. Little Sis likes condensed milk — just not all over manuscript pages when she’s critiquing them. Maybe that’s why she panned everything from Chapter 12 on…

I think I’ll go see Harry Potter this weekend if I can get this novella drafted. 🙂

Crashing after conference

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Little Sis just bought her house and is now going through the cycle of painting, carpeting and cleaning. She called me because she was feeling a little bit hum-drum and didn’t know why. Well, she actually did know why because we always have theories for everything. I suppose that’s why we write.

She likened it to how you always get depressed after finishing a big project. The house is finally hers, now what?

I know these things about me. I knew there would be a post-conference crash. I used up all the adrenaline stores by not sleeping, gushing over seeing and meeting so many people, and crying in the bathroom every morning because I couldn’t believe everything that was happening.

I’m finally writing again. I have no room for excuses. Little Sis says the revised 15 chapters of The Dragon and the Pearl are better, but she won’t start doing line edits until I send her the whole thing. Probably she’ll be reading it between fixing the house and settling in. What a slave driver. Love her.

Oh yeah, karma moment! I got to meet Hilary Sares who sat in front of me at the RITA/GH® awards ceremony. She was there for my chapter-mate Kimberly Killion, who was up for a Rita award. I thanked her in person for placing Silk and Seduction (aka The Dragon and the Pearl) first in the Gateway contest and requesting the full. I never got to send it to her, but it was the first time my writing got any notice from an agent or editor. And the manuscript was so very rough back then. If that’s not motivation to get these revisions done, what is?