First off, come hang with me today at Working Stiffs. I sort of like it there; hope you do, too. (but not more than here! How dare you?)

Secondly, my buddy Claire nominated me for a Blogger’s Choice Award. Please go vote for me.

That’s it for now, but isn’t that party-worthy? No? Then try this on for size: Penguins. Sid the Kid and the Wonder Twins in the post-season for the first time.

And some really great confections from my favorite baker to go along with them. Let’s go Pens!

Levi’s at Costco: $16.99

Way Cool Belt at Roberta Weissburg Leathers: $88

Keeping your pants from puddling at your knees: Priceless.

Best of all, the jeans in question are a size too small. Explain that.

I am so very rock and roll, aren’t I?

Mondays are the slowest day in the entertainment business. But don’t tell that to Lil’ Duck Duck, who’s hosting a carnival of Family Life (#49, in fact!). Go check it out; you might recognize a familiar face and an outtake you may have missed.

Mondays aren’t slow around here, though. Even though it’s been a few days since this happened, I’m still in shock.

Robin, of Around the Island, was amazing enough to tag me with The Thinking Blogger Award . Not just for one post, but my entire body of work here on the blog. I am flattered and touched and pleased and thrilled — and proud. Any writer loves to hear that you make people think, and when I got the e-mail from Robin telling me to check her blog, I was in a funk. The timing was absolutely perfect.

In keeping with the rules of the Thinking Blogger Award — no one have a heart attack; I do occasionally follow the rules! — I get to pass this award on to five other nice people. So here they are…

To She at the Screaming Pages for this post about her recent India adventures. Like many a traveller before her, India (and the Philippines) this time had a life-altering effect on her. And I’m not talking about the food poisoning, but what came when she got home: she took a deep breath and stepped off the edge of the world, quitting her job. That, woman, takes guts.

My good friend Milan always makes me think, especially when he does his Thursday Thirteen posts. Here’s one that really illustrates how much effort he puts into them and how hard he stretches my brain. He may not post a 13 every week, but I’d sure argue that he’s a valued member of the 13 community.

Of course I have to nominate Erica. The woman, the blog, the whole ball of wax. She juggles being a mom, a blogger, an aspiring writer, and a full-time employee. She’s always up on the latest fads — screening them for me, I joke with her — and her enthusiasm shines on through even the rough spots. I’m proud to be her partner in the Debut a Debut contest, as well as the upcoming summer reading contest.

It may be really tacky of me, but I’d like to give the award back to Robin, for this post. If you’ll read the comment trail, you’ll see that my son has a friend whose behavior is similar to Robin’s daughter’s. This post gave me new insights into my son’s friend and while I may not be in a position to help my son’s friend, at least I have some insights that help me be a better guardian when he’s here playing.

I’m going to stop at four, not because I want to buck the rules but because now I’m going to start nominating all my friends who write book blogs — karen!, Antheras, Cheesygiraffe, CheriePie, Breeni, Ace and Hoser. And on. And on. You’ve seen me mention them all here before, you’ve seen them in my comment trail and as entrants in my various contests. These guys are my friends above and beyond blogging, even though I’ve yet to meet any of them face-to-face. They inspire me to new heights of writing and other fun ideas, and they are quick to stop me from doing something dumb or pointless. As much as all of you readers inspire me, these guys are my front lines. Check them out; I don’t doubt you’ll be nominating them for Thinking Blogger Awards.

Here are the rules, for you newly tagged folk…

How participation works:

If, and only if, you get tagged, write a post with links to 5 blogs that make you think. Link to this post so that people can easily find the exact origin of the meme.

Optional: Display the ‘Thinking Blogger Award’ with a link to the post that you wrote.

One last note… those of you who read me in a feed reader have noticed a bunch of posts lately. Most of them are old posts; I’m catching up on my labels and tags. Read, have fun, comment away. Just be sure to click through and check the posting dates!

Catch you guys in a bit…

The ultra gorgeous Sanni at Coffee2Go tagged me last week with the music meme: what seven songs are you currently into?

Well.

Seven SONGS.

SONGS?

What are you, nuts???

You really expect me, music-lover extraordinaire, to pick seven songs?

That’s like asking my fictional character Trevor Wolff to pick his favorite seven women. Or asking my fictional character Mitchell Voss to pick his favorite guitar. Or asking my fictional character Chelle LaFleur to pick the seven best shows she’s been to in her lifetime. (If you don’t know or are too lazy to use the CAST tab at the top of the page, Chelle’s a music critic and goes to lots of shows.)

In a sense, it’s like asking someone to pick their favorite author based on single books. Yeah, I loved Lalita Tademy’s Cane River, but does that mean I’ll love everything she wrote? (and no, I haven’t gotten my hands on Red River yet. But hey, it’s Buy a Friend a Book Week, isn’t it?)

Besides, my favorite song changes based on what’s playing at the moment. Really. Truly.

Thus, I’ll compromise with you guys, who are probably rolling your eyes at the way I’ve managed to tie books and music together yet again. Here are my seven hot bands of the moment:

1. Metallica
2. Disturbed

Okay, those two are probably always and forever choices. Too bad if you don’t like it. More for me. (Anyone seen the great bike jerseys in the Metallica store? I’ve got a birthday this month, you know… Wear a medium…)

3. Flyleaf
4. Linkin Park (new stuff May 15! Single just out!)
5. Godsmack

Those are really good, solid bands. I have high hopes for the future of Flyleaf, especially, and I’m hating life because I won’t be able to see them when they’re in town next week. I really like how Godsmack’s songwriting is maturing with them. You can tell they learned a lot from their recent tour with… guess who (see #1 if you’re not sure).

And then two bands who I always flip to when I see them playing on my XM Online:
6. Iron Maiden
7. Queensryche

Just some classic rock and roll with an attitude. Speaking of Iron Maiden and books, I never managed to get my hands on Bruce Dickinson’s fictional attempt from the early 90s. One of my <a href="http://www.serge.org/MusicMorsels/2003_05/industry.htm"<record label reps at the time (back during my radio days) told me he did NOT want me to see it. He wouldn’t give me a reason, and I always honored his … uhh… directive. But now, Jim won’t return my e-mails to see how the hell he’s doing, so bring on The Adventures of Lord Iffy Fairbarn, or whatever the frell it was called…

As for who to tag next, go for it, folks. Talk music to me and amongst yourselves.

Back in a few to answer Rashenbo’s latest tag, all about balance.

While I’ve been busy putting together some Buy a Friend a Book Week fun for next week, I realized that I can’t find the surface of my desk. It’s actually been this way for some time now and I swear, everything there can’t find another home somewhere else.

That made me think. What sorts of things do other people keep on their desks?

Here’s one take on it, with an outtake to finish up the desk fun over the weekend. Stay tuned for that, and for the BAFAB contest.

Thirteen Things on the desk of Mitchell Voss, rock star: 1. Guitar picks 2. remote control to the sound system, empty CD cases, and some newish, trendy stuff that keeps getting overlooked in favor of the old favorites. 3. papers JR‘s been waiting on for weeks 4. papers Daniel‘s been waiting on for weeks 5. love drawings, instead of love notes, from Kerri and a sketch of hers that he stole and framed. Conveniently, she’s never noticed it. 6. scraps of paper with random, so-far unused song lyrics scribbled on them 7. the first guitar string he broke onstage 8. bulk quantities of black Sharpies 9. three desk lamps to act as spotlights on strategic piles of papers 10. new lightbulbs for the lamps 11. two years’ worth of music industry trade magazines he intends to read — next time he gets the chance 12. a hairbrush that hasn’t been cleaned since it arrived on the desk even though it gets semi-frequent use 13. an origami dragon folded by one of the crew during ShapeShifter‘s last tour Anything interesting on your desk? Links to other Thursday Thirteens!

Hey, guys, over the weekend, I noticed that some of you were asking if I’d gotten a comment you’d left here, or I’d clear something from owner moderation and … it wouldn’t show up.

I have no idea what’s going on, and I’m going to sic the Tour Manager on it today.

Stay tuned; I’ve got your monthly visit with Pam and I hope to have time to write you a new outtake.

Anyone got fun ideas for Thursday Thirteen? Feel free to e-mail me if your comment doesn’t show — my name at my blog’s name dot com.

First off, let me tell you that I’ve finished my first book for the Spring Reading Thing challenge: Linda Fairstein’s The Kills. I really liked it, so if you’d like to read it, you can get it one of three ways: by requesting it at PaperBackSwap, by mooching it from me at BookMooch, or by leaving me a comment here and asking for it. Be sure to leave me an e-mail address, if I don’t have an address on file for you.

My copy’s a hardback and yes, it’s registered at BookCrossing. I’d love it if you’d leave some thoughts about what you think of it.

Other stuff…

Barb at Front Street Reviews has asked me to tell you guys to check out a cool profile she’s done of Capital Crime Press. Two of their more prominent authors are the extremely funny Robert Fate (author of Baby Shark) and Troy Cook (author of 47 Rules of a Highly Effective Bank Robber). This feature is in conjunction with Small Press Month; don’t forget to finish off the month with some small presses!

Buy a Friend a Book Week is fast approaching. I’m going to do a small contest for it, so watch the blog for more details. But here’s a hint: anyone who e-mails me a scanned receipt for the purchase of Steven Lee Beeber‘s The Heebie-Jeebies at CBGB’s will win a cool book from me. I’ll have other books to give away during BAFAB week, if only because I have too many here again and would like to get them moving through the world.

And while I’m talking about Beeber and punk rock, I’d like to once again put forth my willingness to review Clinton Heylin’s new book on punk. Babylon’s Burning. Not only am I curious to read it, I want to see how it stacks up against Beeber’s book. Now pushed back to a July release, I’d love to be part of some pre-publication reviews — and I’ll offer up Barb’s Front Street Reviews as a spot for which to post that review. Ain’t it great to have friends?

Yesterday, I showed you one variation on the real soy sauce story. Here’s the other one.

Really, is it that much of a surprise to hear how much I love Mitchell?

Mitchell scratched his head as he contemplated the seven varieties of soy sauces. He hadn’t paid much attention when Ma had asked him to pick some up on his way over; he’d figured that just remembering it was the brand with the Chinese name would be good enough.

He could hear her reminder: “Good enough rarely is, Mitchell.” And his father, chiming in about how to find success, a person had to give 100%, all the time.

Clearly, he’d fucked this one up royally.

He was still standing there when a couple walked by. “Get the Ping’s,” the woman said. “It’s the best of the all-natural brands.”

“How can it be best?” the man asked.

“I don’t know,” the woman said. Mitchell smiled at her exasperated tone. “But it is. Maybe they use special soy for it or something. Make it in small batches. I don’t know. Call them and ask.”

Mitchell wondered if they would answer that sort of question if someone called and asked it.

Out of the corner of his eye, he caught the woman nudge the man and make a subtle gesture in his direction. With a sigh, he picked up a bottle of Ping’s soy sauce and tried to be casual as he walked away.

Just what he needed. To be spotted while making an indecisive ass of himself in front of something like soy sauce. It wouldn’t be surprising if, over the next few days, someone’s gossip column mentioned that he used Ping’s Soy Sauce and there’d be a run of it.

And that he’d spend the next six months autographing the stupid labels.

He looked at the label on the bottle he held. Thankfully, it was black. That’d make it hard to sign. No one ever carried Sharpies in colors other than black.

He was safe, at least from that.

It dawned on me over the weekend — after I’d posted the Soy Sauce Story, of course — that I could have written the same story, only fictionalized. From the point of view of one of my characters. (Isn’t Mitchell the perfect naif to play the stranger?)

One quick note and then we’ll get to the fiction: This is about as rough as my writing gets. I haven’t gone over this for typos, for improvements or tweaks, nothing. So bear with me.

Soy Sauce Story — Val’s Point of View

Val sighed and pushed her hair out of her face. They were out of Ping’s brand soy sauce again. What was wrong with the place, that they couldn’t keep up with demand? Everyone knew Ping’s made the best soy sauce.

She turned to the woman behind the counter. “Excuse me?” she started, ready to chew the woman out. She worked there; surely she had some sort of control over the store’s inventory.

It wasn’t overly surprising that the woman ignored her. Val figured she was probably bristling with hostility and if the roles had been reversed, Val would have been reluctant to talk to someone so ready to explode.

What did surprise was when the woman yelled to someone in the back room. In perfect Mandarin, “Anyone want to come deal with the annoying slut out front?”

Val tried not to gasp or adjust her clothes. Yeah, so she was decked out; she and Daniel were on their way to a sex club and she’d asked if they could run in since the grocery was on the way.

“The annoying slut out front is pissed you’re out of Ping’s. Again,” Val snapped back, not caring that her Mandarin was rusty. Not caring about anything except this had been a wasted trip and that she’d have to spend half the week searching out the Ping’s.

The man popped out of the back room, full of apologies in both Chinese and English.

By the time Daniel came in to see what had happened to her, Val had promises that four bottles of Ping’s would be held for her on the next shipment day — Tuesday — and that in the future, all she needed to do was call when she ran low and bottles would be waiting with her name on them.

Even if her name would be Annoying Chinese Slut.

I got home from another great Penguins game last night to find this message in my inbox: Tell the Soy Sauce Story. The reminder came from The Bluest Butterfly and thank goodness, because I’d completely forgotten I’d left a comment on someone’s blog that said, “Remind me to tell the Soy Sauce Story.”

Now, to fully appreciate the Soy Sauce Story, you’ve got to understand that I’m a bit geeky. I think some of it is from birth, but the majority of it has rubbed off from the Tour Manager. Fortunately for him, he’s indispensible to me, so I’ll gladly take a bit of geekiness on his end. And maybe mine, too.

One of our favorite shows is Alton Brown‘s Good Eats. (I won’t link to the show because last time I did, it fought with my XM radio and took down my entire computer. I’m talking Blue Screen of Death takedown. And even though XM just made me choose between Metallica and Iron Maiden, I won’t torture it again with the Good Eats link. You, I’m sure, know how to Google.)

One Saturday night, before our local indie station started running Farscape, we were watching Alton teach us about soy sauce. Alton pointed out that in the case of soy sauce (unlike crystal meth), better living does NOT come from chemistry. Soy sauce should be made up of soy beans and water, nothing else.

This probably wouldn’t have stayed with me, but the next day, the Tour Manager and I were in the local grocery. Soy sauce was on our shopping list. The Tour Manager looked at me with that glint in his eye, the one that says he’s about to unleash the Inner Geek. And then he set about reading the ingredient list on the bottle of soy sauce that we had a coupon for.

It was perfect: Soy beans and water. Into our shopping cart it went.

Of course, the Inner Geek wasn’t done yet. The Tour Manager’s Inner Geek is never satisfied that easily, not when there’s geekiness to be wreaked. And so, in short order, the Tour Manager was off, reading the ingredient list of each and every brand of soy sauce and reporting his discoveries.

Now, this is merely a story of a geeky tour manager and his writer wife, who is standing there, slightly embarrassed, slightly intrigued, and definitely pleased that the Tour Manager’s having so much fun. What makes this story such a good one is the man who was also shopping for soy sauce at the same time.

The man who reached into his cart and began reading the ingredient list on the back of the soy sauce he’d chosen.

The man who put that bottle of soy sauce back. Who looked none-too-casually into our shopping cart. And who picked up the same brand of soy sauce inside our cart. The one made of soy beans and water, and nothing else.

Okay, maybe you’re not roaring with laughter the way The Tour Manager and I were as we walked away. Maybe you’re only smiling as you’re picturing this. Maybe it’s a “you should have been there” type of story. I don’t know. You tell me.

Thanks to everyone who put up with me today and last night. I’d inadvertently turned off the comments on my Thursday Thirteen. Not sure how; can I blame it on my using the laptop instead of my more comfortable desktop?

HUGE thanks to those of you who stopped back JUST to leave a comment. I owe you guys.

Also, if you’ve been looking for your comments, I was (the horror!) away from the ‘puter all day. ALL DAY. They’re posted now; you guys rock. Thanks for visiting.

And lastly, SparkyDuck, what’s your dirty comment that goes with Trevor riding his Vincent? I’m sure it’s not something he tried, if not out-and-out did, so let’s hear it!

(If you have no clue what I’m talking about scroll down to the Thursday Thirteen that now has its comments turned firmly ON.)

Thirteen St. Patrick’s Days adventures, as done by the various characters in and around Riverview, USA. 1. The year Trevor, who does have a bit of Irish in him somewhere along the line, put streamers on his Vincent and rode with a cycling group in the St. Patty’s Day Parade. 2. The year Amy told Mitchell that the Riverview State Park had been formed to preserve the leprechauns and their pots of gold, so Mitchell took off for the park — and got horribly lost in the woods. It took Patterson and a group of his colleagues to find the boy, well after sunset. Needless to say, Amy got into a bit of trouble. Mitchell didn’t brave the park alone again for years. 3. Pam makes a ritual of dressing up for the holiday around her exercise class. For St. Patrick’s Day, she wears those cheap cardboard top hats, green tails, green socks, black capri tights, and a green bra top. The tails come off at some point, but the rest stays on. 4. There was the time, early in the band’s career, when they took the stage dressed as leprechauns. Complete with shorts that let bony knees hang out, and fake red beards. Pictures of this do exist — in the scrapbook Amy keeps, of course! 5. The year that dark chocolate was first touted as having health benefits, Amy handed her patients some of those foil-wrapped gold coins that usually show up as Hanukkah gelt. Her older patients were horrified that a doctor would hand out chocolate. Her younger patients were amused. Her female patients laughed the hardest. 6. The staff at Chelle’s newspaper once decided to dress in green to mark St. Patrick’s Day. Chelle went out and found a green shirt and made herself a green skirt. It was quickly decided that Chelle looked like a green M&M, and that she should stick to black, white, and pastels in the future. Chelle hates pastels, but they do look good against her dark skin. 7. The year Daniel and Val began what became a yearly ritual: making shamrock-shaped sugar cookies for his grandmother. When Daniel’s on tour and can’t make the cookies, Val does. She sends half to Daniel’s grandmother and half to him on the road. 8. The time Eric and his older brother Jared strolled into church in the middle of their father’s sermon — faces painted green and wearing full leprechaun clothing. 9. One year during the band’s first tour — the one they drove their way through — Trevor poured a green beer over a blonde he was flirting with. She slapped him (the nerve!) and ran off. Trevor merely shrugged and said she apparently didn’t know much about what made for good foreplay. No one in the band bought his bluster. 10. The year Val was still in culinary school and decided to make a traditional Irish dinner for Daniel and his grandmother, since her own family wasn’t interested. It was one of her few disasters, if only because she didn’t know enough about Irish food to make a palatable meal. 11. When Mitchell was six and Amy eight, she convinced him that their front yard was full of four-leaf clovers — but they’d hide from bad little boys. Mitchell, of course, set out to prove her wrong. He, of course, failed at this. 12. A few years and a lot of culinary school later, Val finally managed to get the Irish dinner right. It’s now something she does annually for Daniel’s grandmother and her older sister, the only people who’re interested in joining her in the tradition. 13. Life isn’t complete without a Shamrock Shake or two for Daniel, Eric, and Mitchell, who sit and slurp happily as the tour bus rolls on…

Links to other Thursday Thirteens!

Get the Thursday Thirteen code here!

The purpose of the meme is to get to know everyone who participates a little bit better every Thursday. Visiting fellow Thirteeners is encouraged! If you participate, leave the link to your Thirteen in others comments. It’s easy, and fun! Be sure to update your Thirteen with links that are left for you, as well! I will link to everyone who participates and leaves a link to their 13 things. Trackbacks, pings, comment links accepted!
View More Thursday Thirteen Participants

I read a very nice blog via my feedreader. It posts all sorts of cool (and not so cool) jobs for freelance writers. And while I’m not a freelance writer, it’s still neat to read and see what’s out there. You never know where the road we’re on will wind up, I figure. Besides, even if it’s not something I need personally, you never know when a character or two might.

The list of job postings that went up on Sunday sorta horrified me, which is why you’re not getting a direct link. The typos. Oy, the typos! I’ve been reading this blog long enough to have an idea that they didn’t come from Denise, who runs the site. But come on now, folks… why would any self-respecting writer want to work for you if you can’t tell the difference between you’re and your. Heroin and heroine. Breath and breathe.

If you’ve been following the exploits of Chelle LaFleur, you’ve seen her harp on this sort of thing in the past. Namely when I messed up as I wrote a piece for her, and all you groupies caught it for me. (thank you for that, too)

So it seemed natural to let Chelle loose on the subject again. And while I’d have ranted more about how important it is for potential employers (and literary agents) to represent themselves more… well, Chelle may be fictional, but she’s her own woman.

If you need to catch up on her exploits, search my tags for Chelle. And anyone who can tell me how to make an index — or who wants to do it for me, just for the link love and bragging rights — please, speak up.

Oh, and check to make sure your feed’s turned on, will ya? I’m talking RSS or Atom, not Feedburner. I’m a Google Reader sort of girl. (why does that make me feel all flirty and like I should be kicking up my heels and batting my eyelashes?)

Talk at you soon…

You repeat offenders (aka groupies) might have noticed something different around here. We’re trying to match the red on my website.

How’s it looking?

Are you seeing the sidebar okay?

And does anyone want to take on the completion of the project, just for the challenge and public kudos?

(btw, this isn’t the only cosmetic change afoot… stay tuned…)

We all know how Daylight Savings Time affects our kids: they’re cranky for a week as their little bodies adjust to the change. We, ourselves, are out of sorts for a day or two, but we spend at least a week, if not more, complaining about the effects of the change on our kids. But then the increased exposure to light kicks in and all’s good. However, when you’re in a rock band, the time change can affect things that we ordinary folk don’t think about. I sat down with Mitchell and Charlie, ShapeShifter‘s longtime tour manager, and asked them to enlighten us. Due to the fact that Mitchell’s already pulling a #5, I decided to summarize rather than expose you prematurely to his adjustment (or lack thereof) issues. Thus… Thirteen Things that Suck and Rock about the Switch to Daylight Savings Time 1. An hour less in the day means the band has to be on the bus and hitting the road sooner after a show’s end. That means that… 2. The after-show party has to be cut a bit shorter. After all, getting to the next town on time does take precedence over a party. Believe it or not. 3. A shorter after-show party means … you guessed it. Fewer beers consumed (leading to a less severe hangover) and … yes, it’s true. Fewer girls. 4. But on a good note, it’s in the band’s tour rider that the bus is to be stocked with food for the trip to the next city. Often, though, the food doesn’t get put away. An hour less of sleep means that the food is discovered an hour earlier, which means maybe the stuff prone to spoiling won’t. Since the guys often don’t discover the spoilage effect until it’s too late, this can often be a very good thing. 5. Another good thing is that no one sleeps well on a tour bus (and I don’t care if you say you’re the exception. You’re not! NO ONE sleeps well on a tour bus). The switch to Daylight Savings Time means one less hour of crappy sleep on the bus. 6. This lost hour of sleep makes Mitchell a very cranky boy, indeed. You thought kids were bad? They’re nothing on a sleep-deprived Mitchell Voss. Because, after all, this time switch was done just to fuck with him, don’tcha know. (That is how Trevor likes to put it, just before he ducks one of Mitchell’s swinging fists.) 7. And, of course, there’s the issue of time zones, states that don’t recognize Daylight Savings, and a band that already has no clue what time it is. Keeping track of such issues is a very important part of a tour manager’s job. 8. Daylight Savings Time heralds the onset of spring. If you watch the band’s road crew carefully, you’ll notice the smokers among them who, when coming outside for a smoke break, turn their faces to the sun, eyes shut. So much better than that weak wintry sun. 9. With springtime comes another important moment for the road crew — the day when the merchandise tables change. There are fewer sweatshirts for sale and more tank tops. The crew loves this change because, let’s face it, 100 tank tops in a box weigh less than 50 sweatshirts in a same-sized box. 10. New merchandise means more sales. Which makes everyone happy. 11. The shedding of winter jackets and other bulky clothes makes for a neater bus, as coats and whatnot aren’t left laying around. (It will be months before Eric’s missing glove reappears, and when it does, another band will be using this bus and poor Eric will never get his glove back because, of course, the finder of the glove is smart enough to recognize a souvenir when she sees one.) 12. Shedding of clothes is always welcome in the ShapeShifter camp. 13. Of course, when you’re ShapeShifter, the only time that really matters is show time. Part of the magic of a ShapeShifter show is that it happens at the same time every night, no matter what time zone you’re in: thirty minutes after the warm-up act ends. Links to other Thursday Thirteens!

Get the Thursday Thirteen code here!

The purpose of the meme is to get to know everyone who participates a little bit better every Thursday. Visiting fellow Thirteeners is encouraged! If you participate, leave the link to your Thirteen in others comments. It’s easy, and fun! Be sure to update your Thirteen with links that are left for you, as well! I will link to everyone who participates and leaves a link to their 13 things. Trackbacks, pings, comment links accepted!
View More Thursday Thirteen Participants

So… while I figure out what to do for tonight’s Thursday Thirteen, I have a question:

Reading anything good?

I’m reading an okay science fiction, but earlier in the week read my first James Alan Gardner, Expendable. I figured it was sort of fitting, when I realized it was his — yes, here we go again — debut.

Just can’t lose the debuts, can I?

Back to our question: Reading anything good?

So here’s the post I had prepared for today:

I’ve been thinking about the WIP I’ve been spending the most time with. Meant as a follow-up to Trevor’s Song, I’ve been writing away and having a lot of fun with it. These are really fun characters, as most of you guys know.

But I always get to a point in my WIPs where I get worried that I’ve fallen off the track, so I go back and read and give a light edit to what I’ve already done.

As you can probably figure, it’s that time again. As I think back over the first chapter, where I am now in the story is so far afield, I need to stop and see where and how I can fix things. I have some ideas; it’s time to see if I can make some of them happen.

This isn’t an easy WIP for me. I’m writing about strong emotions I have very little first-hand experience with. I’m writing about situations that I’d never in a million years let myself fall into.

But this is why it’s fiction. It’s good to push myself like this. After all, writing is a craft.

Time to craft the WIP a bit.

Before I go, though, let me hear from you regulars: do you want more of Daniel and Mitchell? Eric? What about the girls? Kerri and Val? And Mitchell’s sister, Amy? Of what I’ve shown you in this blog before, who intrigues you the most? Who do you want to read about?

But then, two things happened:
First was that I FINALLY hit 10,000 hits. So thanks to all of you who’ve helped make that happen. Pretty cool to see on the old stat counter!

And I sat down and wrote down each chapter number, point-of-view character, and major themes. Floated some ideas at the Tour Manager. And had one that, for now, stuck.

If you never take chances, you never learn and grow as a person — or as a writer. And besides, I’m not on deadline yet. This is the perfect time for experimentation.

I still want to hear which characters you want to spend more time with, though. If you’re not a regular, read over the character descriptions I’ve linked to each character’s name. Tell me who intrigues you — and why.

Thanks!