Ummm.... Hello!

Hello

I'm embarrassed to not have come back here more often. I don't know why I don't. I think about it now and then, but almost immediately get buried under something else. And it's not been a good month or two anyway. Maybe if I feel as though I have something good to write about, I'll come back here?

I am writing, of course. I had to do something I've rarely had to do in the past, though. Since I have a nonfiction book due in early September, and it was just dragging along, I dropped everything else and won't allow myself to write any fiction until I'm done with it.

That little ploy worked. I have about 7,000 more words to go. I expect to be done within a week. And you know what? I'm actually enjoying it. Once I forced myself to concentrate, the book started to flow and I've been having a great time writing it.

The only other real work I have is for the DAZ Newsletter. It's going pretty well, too. Other things... not so great in many ways, but I'm pulling through it. Russ might be home around the 8th of August, though we're not certain. I hope he can make it. I'd like a little human company for a day or two. And maybe get away from the house, too.

Though, on the really good side, I have started taking walks at dawn most mornings. I found that the local bike path goes down to the river, which makes a pleasant place to walk, partly through some wild trees and then through corn fields and down under the railroad bridge. It's generally cool enough in the mornings that it doesn't bother me. Heat and I don't get along at all. There are lots of birds, rabbits, and I saw a couple raccoons, too. I've been told that in the spring and fall there are a good many deer -- which are there now, but you can't see them because the corn is too high.

I am behind on a few other things, though. The second Silky book should have been turned in this month. I just couldn't do it. I will have it done in August.

And I have so many unfinished projects from this year that I'm not certain how I'm going to get them all written before the end of December! There's something to really push me on to get this one done! I'm running out of time. That doesn't happen very often!

I am tempted to try and make a daily entry here for a while, just to get back into the habit of it. And you know, talk about that writing stuff that I enjoy so much.

I wrote something interesting...but....

I wrote something I really liked today... but there is a problem with it:

Mark Carter should never have followed the ghost of Allisia, his murdered wife, down a dead end street.

Two years after the shocking death of his wife, Mark has finally put aside his grief, sold his home, packed away his wedding pictures, and taken a new job. At twenty-five, he's even found a new romance. Then, on a stormy afternoon, he sees the ghostly apparition of Allisia jogging along the road where she had died. In a frenzy of shock and grief, he leaps from the car and runs after her... and into a perilous world of shadows and ghosts, truths and deceptions.

Mark has stumbled into a world that parallels his own, and there he learns that his wife was not really human and is not fully dead, but rather is trapped in the area between worlds, where dangers he could never have imagined stalk her -- and now hunt him as well, as the link back to the world of light.

He also learns of Allisia's part in a plot to invade his world, but that she had defected and is now paying the price for her love of him. Uncertain whom he can trust in this new world, and learning he might become trapped as well, he still joins forces with her to fight back her former commander and defeat the dark forces bent on invasion. Their success is bittersweet, however, since Allisia can't come back with him, and he
must leave the shadow lands or risk being the key that opens the doors for others.

Dead End Street is a completed urban fantasy novel of 96,500 words. The book has potential for additional stand-alone novels featuring Mark, his dead wife and the trouble brewing between the two worlds.

So, what's the problem?

I haven't written this book. And now I want to. And I have far too many other things to do.

But it does look like an interesting little story, doesn't it?

My life is getting too odd when I can write the synopsis and then think about the novel.

A strangely uplifting moment

So, on Saturday I saw the mailman go by and I went out to get the mail. In the box was a letter to my address, but not to me and not from anyone I knew. I saw the mailman had parked down the street to sort out the next clump of mail, so I walked down to give back the letter. He got out before I got there and came to take.

"Yeah, I wondered about it," he said, taking the letter. "But I thought it might be one of your pen names."

How odd -- but it just cheered me right up to think that the mailman would even know that much about me. Granted, he's been our mailman for at least twenty years and noticed all kinds of rejections, I'm sure. Since I am primarily Internet-based as a writer, I have less opportunity for local notice. I've had a couple pieces in the paper, but mostly it's people in far more distant areas that see my work.

So, just one of those odd things that happen now and then that gives a little extra fun.

What else is going on? Russ is still trying to come home for our 29th anniversary. He hopes to fly home on the 19th and leave on the 23rd. The idea of seeing him again so soon is really nice, but.... the price of flights has more than doubled, and we're not exactly really doing well in finances. But we'll see. It might happen.

Writing work is going odd, but moving. I need to finish up at least one short story. I don't know how those three got stacked up there like that -- but I'll start concentrating on them and get the little beasts done. I'm working on other things, too, and hope to get all kinds of things caught up soon. We'll see. I need to get focused on housecleaning, too. I've had a bad couple weeks for various reasons, and when I'm in that kind of mood, nothing gets done outside of writing -- which is, as always, my escape. Even the writing slowed up this time, though. Actually, it's been slow for the entire year, but I'm getting there.

I am especially happy with the notes for Draw the Line, though I'm nowhere near done with them. I think this might be my main NaNo book -- if I can even get everything I want by then. If not, it might be the new book for 2009. No, it's not too early to be thinking about something like that if it's a book that requires as much pre-work as this one does. I have three alien groups to invent, plus their cultures. Since it's from the new Tree Universe set, I have a basic premise -- 'We are all fruit from the same tree, we just fell to different grounds.' This is to explain why the aliens share a lot of basics -- but I still have to do a great deal of work to create the mutations that make them different (one group is quite different, in fact), and also work on the creation of their common ground.

Oh, just had a thought and had to go add it to the SuperNotecard group for this. I love thinking these things through. I have a group that works somewhat like Prairie dogs, which I believe are the only animals where the adults leave the original tunnels and dens to the younger members, and they move out to start a new area, where it is far more dangerous. That way, the animals with more experience are in the more dangerous areas.

Anyway, time to go back to work on the SuperNotecard stuff and get a bunch of other work done. I think I hear the dishes calling to me... and that can't be good.

Six months down....

And no end in sight, as far as Russ and I can tell. I'm talking about his job in New York, of course. He left the day after Thanksgiving. He came back this weekend for the first time in three months. We had a fun time, and he hopes to make it back for our anniversary next month, but it's doubtful. Flight prices have gone way up. What a shock.

We are still digging our way out of debt, but we're a lot closer. It's amazing, because as debt goes, we have never had much. We don't do credit cards, we don't have car payments, we don't have kids. We have the second house which is $500 a month plus another $150 for utilities, plus this house which has no payment, but about $250 in utilities. Car insurance, of course, though the car spends most of the time sitting in Omaha these days. Russ has his expenses in New York -- a place to stay, of course, and all the extras of getting around there. He's thinking about trying to buy a cheap car out there for work, which would help in some ways. Yes, let's see -- two people with three housing locations and three cars. (The van is pretty much dead, though. He thinks he'll see if someone will just drag it off for us.)

Life is odd.

I wish he could get a job closer and maybe spend a weekend or two a month at home. I manage fine on my own, but you know -- I married Russ for a reason, and it wasn't to just talk to him on the phone now and then and exchange emails. Next month will be our 29th anniversary.

I will not be moving over to the other house for the summer like I thought I might. It turns out that despite draining all the pipes, one of them did freeze and break this winter, and it is at the worst spot to try and fix. Ugh. That house has central air. It appealed to me. Actually, if the weather gets too hot, I'll just go over there and work for a while anyway. We didn't get a chance to put the AC unit in the window here, so if the weather suddenly heats up, it's going to be pretty miserable. This house is fine until late afternoon.
I do have a good fan, though, so I'll survive it. I just don't much like heat. We've been lucky in our weather this year, especially compared to some of the other areas. I hope it stays that way.

So, okay. Time to get focused back on writing. I can do this, right?

(Starts pulling out notes and wondering what some of them might really mean....)

Happy guy