Vive le summer!

Okay, it's been a while since my last French class, so my vocabulary is a little embarrassing. And this is the first time I've blogged since February, which is more than a little embarrassing.

But it's summer. And I finally have enough energy to send my novel rewrite zipping along as it should be. I don't mean that words are magically flowing from the ends of my fingers. I mean that I've finally recovered the energy and focus to sit down for 3-4 hours a night, every night, and FORCE them out. It's exhilarating. It's exhausting. I'm so happy.

Hopefully this new surge of productivity will include a few blog posts, but I'm done scheduling myself or planning what to write in advance. I finally realized that I'd been trying to do with blogging exactly what I don't do with my writing--outline. I start with a scene or a character and let that little piece lead me down a path and tell me what it will be. I figure my blog should probably be the same way. I put in the time, and the blog decides what it will be :)

If you are a fiction writer and you aren't reading Patricia C. Wrede's blog, you should be. Her posts are so chock-full of good common sense about the writerly life, that I suspect she's actually her own character, the witch Morwen (whose front gate sports a sign reading "None of this nonsense, please") in disguise. As proof, I offer up her last two posts, which have been about, yes, budgeting. What could be more down to earth than that?

Check out Pat's blog here: http://pcwrede.com/blog/.

Cheers, ya'll! Enjoy your summers. Wear sunscreen.

Back in the Saddle

A packed and stressful month at school caused me to drop the ball on both this blog and my WIP. However, after an inspiring Houston YA/MG authors group meeting yesterday (read about it here, and having survived the first month and a half of the semester, I am back in gear!

In one way, my forced hiatus from the WIP may have been a good thing--I'd written myself to a standstill, and needed a break and some fresh perspective to figure out how to take the story to the next level. Hopefully, I've gotten that, so here's to draft five!

Anecdote on a Tuesday

This is my favorite joke from junior high. It is a two person joke, so you may need to try it out on an innocent bystander.

Me: Ask me if I'm a tree.

Innocent bystander (looking dubious): Are you a tree?

Me: No! (hysterical laughter)

I don't understand why I still find this so hilarious, or why I'm laughing as I type it out. Most innocent bystanders do not find it amusing. It's a lot more fun to be Me ;)

Geriatric Jive

The other day, I spotted this old guy at the gym. Actually, he was kind of hard not to notice. He would plant his cane in front of him, and then shuffle up to it in time to the peppy beat pounding down from the sound system. And I thought, that’s who I want to be when I grow up. The old lady doing the electric slide with her walker.

Groove on, old guy.