Closed for Nanowrimo!

That's right, folks, the blog is down for the month of November so I can devote my attention to Nanowrimo.

If you want to check on my progress, visit me at:

http://Its (So Not) a Barbie World

Its Muse Monday!

I've decided to fire the female muses in my life. They were nothing but trouble anyway. As an alternative, I've decided to audtion and develop my own brigade of male muses. At least if they fall down on the job I can find an alternative form of employment for them.

Hmmm, employment, that rhymes with enjoyment...

So, what does your muse look like?

Its Cold Today!

First a qualifier. My version of cold is under 68 degrees. What can I say? I was a desert rat and a beach rat for so many years that my thermostat is permanently skewed. I shiver when the thermometer falls below seventy. My teeth start chattering as soon as my feet hit the tile floors in the morning.

So, for us, here in Central Florida...it feels like fall! We broke out the long sleeves this morning, bundled the kids up and , and sent them out into the frigid pre-dawn to catch buses. As soon as we got home , we did what all good Floridian's do in autumn. We turned on the pool heater.

Which means the Jacuzzi will be warm in about fifteen minutes. The espresso is brewing and cafe double mochas are on their way.

Somedays I hate this state with everything I have in me (especially how they treat persons with disabilities), but other days....like this one...when I can spend a morning in the jacuzzi, watching the cranes and egrets soaring over the lush live oak reserve our yard backs up to....well, I have to wonder why I ever whined at all.

So today, I'm meeting my muse in the Jacuzzi. I have grounds for an hour to myself anyway. I hit the 75% mark in the rewrite this weekend, and synopsized my new WIP, It's (so not) A Barbie World. YA for a change. I can't wait to dive in. All puns intended, of course.

A Writer's Last Sanctuary

I'm think I'm on a roll, and no, I'm not talking about an onion kaiser here, although I must say that a grilled ham and swiss on a kaiser really does sound yummy right now. Yes sirree, I'm either on a writing roll, or I have jumped into the deep end of OCD.

You see, I decided a while back that come hell or high water, I was going to write at least ten pages per day on weekdays and twenty pages a day on weekends. Typed and double spaced.

Today's events have sorely challenged my resolve.

First off, Mom called today. Now I'm nuts about my mom--always have been, always will be. But, mom--well, she likes to talk, in spite of living like a recluse. Specifically, Mom likes nothing better than to talk to me. No, not talk to me. Warn me.

I was blazing myself a torrid trail across page three when mom rang me. Yes, I do have caller ID, and honest to God, I do know how to use it. But my parents are getting up there in years. So much so that when their number comes up on the caller ID, I answer, fearing the worst.

Now, understand that my mom calling is, at best, a three-hour adventure, assuming that life is going good in mom world. Which actually happened once in 1997. If life is not good (meaning Days of our Lives was pre-empted by a major news event, or Dad threw out the Enquirer before she was done reading it, or some ungrateful relative has committed a heinous act of relative ungratefulness), then mom can truly occupy an entire morning telling me about everything in the world I need to be sure and avoid. Like E-coli infested Spinach. Hotbeds of terrorism such as 7-11. Those Goddamn Democrats. Oh, and serial killers. I live in Florida, where my mom is convinced that a serial child molester/murderer lurks on every suburban cul-de-sac.

Mom simply cannot rest unless she has run through her litany of worries for me, my kids, my dogs...so I listen, theorizing that keeping moms heart rate down is a good thing.

Today, after inquiring about my regularity, mom expressed her deep concern that I had become quite lax in protecting myself from the horrors of date rape.

Thud.

I'm no spring chicken. I'm more like a hot-flashing hen in the blaze of Indian Summer. I've been married since the dawn of time. I've had kids running around for so long that I can't recall what I did with spare time when I actually had it. I swear I don't date. Well, not unless Harrison Ford comes begging. Which hasn't happened lately.

But, believe me when I say that this body has been dragged around the block a time or two--face down. Even if a date rapist decided to give it a whirl, he surely would run the other way as soon as he pried me out of my Lipo in a Box and daylight exposed the remnants of what I once called a waistline.

It took some doing, but I finally convinced mom that I wouldn't take drinks from strange rapist-y looking men that I might be unwittingly dating. Especially the ones of Dutch descent, given Florida's proximity to Aruba on the Mom Map.

Mom let me go with a reminder that washing my bananas in a five percent bleach solution might be prevent a world of salmonella. Banana spiders poop on bananas, you know.

So, I sat down, cracked my knuckles and my diligent fingers re-attacked page four. No sooner had my dashing hero rounded first base when my doorbell sounded. Of course, Mr. You're So Vain was expecting a Fed ex. Natch, I had to answer. And since my front doors are composed of nothing but bevelled glass, I can't very well pretend I'm not home once I've stepped into the front room.

There on my front porch stood the Born Again Botox Babe (BABB) from across the street. Now ya'll, I see this gal every three months at best as she's always in some stage of recovery from some variety of cosmetic surgery. Today, BABB traipsed all the way over here to show me her scar revision stitches from a botched breast re-re-augmentation.

Now, I don't know about you all, but when a woman in the later stages of body dysmorphic disorder is standing on my front porch doing the Girls Gone Wild booby flash, I'm going to drag her inside until she comes down off of her pain pill high. So, I lost another hour and half to gawking over BABB's battle wounds and getting saved. Ohhh, how deftly I held my barbed tongue when BABB insisted that she couldn't imbibe in a cup of caffienated coffee because her body is her temple which must remain sanctified to receive the Lord. Morphine drips, general anesthesia, and fake boobies, God's cool with these. Wine, caffiene, white sugar, Harrison Ford fantasies--one way ticket to Hell. Gotcha.

The BABB Boobie Revival Meeting ate up another hour. Two teacher phone calls later, child number one got home from school, and the other two soon followed. No, you can't sell children on Ebay. I checked. No flesh peddling allowed. Not even on a temporary basis.

So much for my word count.

No, I thought. I'm serious about this writing thing.

So I put on my Mother From Hell hat and parked my kids in front of the tv, armed with every sugary snack known to man. I convinced them that if Mommy did not get a shower this very minute, she would stink so reekfully that they would surely hurl at the very scent of me over dinner.

And I grabbed my laptop, and ran back to my bathroom. Locked, the door, too.

That's right, it has all come to this. Man's last sanctuary has now become my secret writer's retreat. I highly recommend clandestine bathroom creativity, actually. There is nothing like the acoustic thrill of clicking keys as they echo around the john. And if you end up writing crap---all you need do is flush.

The Skinny on Amazon Shorts

I received the fact sheet below in response to a query for more information on "Amazon Shorts".

I'd be very curious to hear from other authors considering and/or using the program. I'm looking into it to test market some niche fiction related to persons living with autism. All of my previous pubs have been non-fiction, it seems a safe way to test the waters for autism related fiction as I have a hard drive full of it.

Amazon Shorts Author Fact Sheet

Why Amazon

· More than 50 million customers
· Over $6 billion in media sales (TTM)
· Customer base: affluent, highly educated, sophisticated consumers of media especially predisposed to buying literature in both digital and hard formats.

Amazon Shorts Defined

· Unpublished short-form literature (2,000 – 10,000 words)
· Fiction or non-fiction
· For sale in digital form only
· Sold to readers for $0.49 each
· Exclusive to Amazon.com for a limited period
· Visit the store at www.amazon.com/shorts

What Amazon Shorts Can Do for Authors

· Provide a new outlet to sell short fiction and nonfiction to millions of active readers
· Rejuvenate and actively market authors’ backlists
· Maintain visibility of authors in between published projects
· Introduce readers to unfamiliar writers
· Allow for creative flexibility and innovative experimentation, providing a fertile testing ground for future full-length book ideas or expanding into new genres in a risk-free environment.
· Leverage cross-promotion and cross-selling opportunities between author, author’s publisher, and Amazon.com

What Amazon Shorts Can Do for Readers

· Provide instant reading gratification from favorite authors
· Offer a low-cost, easy and low time-commitment way to sample new writers

Amazon Shorts on the Site

· Amazon Shorts are fully integrated into the Amazon.com website
· Book shoppers are offered relevant Shorts while browsing for books
· Shorts are recommended to book buyers
· Shorts buyers are presented with a full author bibliography
· Full personalization features – customer ratings, reviews, recommendations – are included
· Original short stories
· Essays or personal reflections
· Any materials relating to much-loved fictional characters, especially if it’s been a while since we’ve heard from this character
· Additional non-fiction subject matter such as cooking, business, humor, home improvement
· Author laboratory – testing story concepts and gathering reader feedback
Story Examples
· Stuart Woods writes a humorous account of an obsessive, lifelong struggle to find the perfect travel companion in “A Man and His Luggage”
· Harry S. Dent provides an update to his best-selling book The Next Great Bubble Boom
· “Jakob Wywialowski and the Angels” a short story by Audrey Niffenegger
· Edgar Award winner James Lee Burke writes an original coming-of-age drama set in the Depression Era
· Ann Beattie pens a thoughtful essay on the author’s and reader’s relationship with the written word.
Revenue Share
· Revenue split 60/40 between Amazon and author
· Amazon covers all costs for payment, transaction and customer service
How Do I Sign Up
· To be eligible for consideration, an author must have at least one book currently for sale on Amazon.com
· Contact John Hart at johnhart@amazon.com or 206-266-3103

What would you give to land an Agent?

I'm not normally one to go in for viral marketing, but to help make a cure for breast cancer possible, I'd do about anything. As the mother of two disabled children, I cannot afford to succumb to this illness which runs in my family.

So, I distributed this announcement this morning to my AOL Writer's Cafe mailing list and my old Other Side of Creativity Mailing List:

Imagine if you had the undivided attention of one of the most informative, successful and writer friendly agents in the country for a whole day--all expenses paid.

What would you say? What questions would you ask? Would you pitch your own work, pick her brain, or both?

What if you could help make your publication dreams come true and contribute to making a cure for breast cancer possible at the same time?

What's it worth to you?

Check out this once in a writer's lifetime opportunity by clicking here:

Maybe I'm Amazed

I'd do it myself, but I already got my critique...

Celebrate Good Times, Come on!

OK, the title might be a tad dated, but I'm in a partying state of mind

I've reached two goals on my rewrite....

1) I've got my revision cleaned up to the point where my character falls though the "first doorway" and into the "story world".

2) I did so by 15000 words--less than 15% of the way into the book.

This one is big for me. I hate nothing more than plowing through a novel that takes 25000 words (or more) just to get off the ground. Yet, I am the world's worst for taking five lines to say "it was snowing". Just goes to show that weeding even your most precious prose can make a story that once dragged lighten up and lift off.

I'm proud of me. Let's set off some fireworks, pop a bottle of champagne and toast to the old, faithful delete key.

Naked on the Page

Warning: Explicit Language Below


One of the elemental rules of crafting story dictates that a protagonist must grow or change as a direct result of the story's action. I guess it could also be argued that the protagonist could choose *not* to change as a result of the story's action, as well. Still, shit happens, or you don't have a story.

In order to transport a reader into the story world and hold them there, the story's movement must also result in some incremental and potentially dramatic shift in your character's sense of self awareness as she struggles to reset her world's equilibrium.

I swear to you that I would never dare to soil the field of women's literature with another tired plot revolving around a middle-aged love triangle. (Yawn. Lived it, don't want to read about it) However, an episode of same-sex marital infidelity does provide the fuel that sets my protag's journey into the realm of the (mostly) dead into motion.

As of yesterday's revisions, my protag had not yet realized yet that her competition for her husband's affection is another man. I kind of dreaded returning to the scene, because during the original draft, my words felt "episodic", and the character's reactions to her plight wooden.

During the rewriting, the most amazing thing happened. Lo and behold, my main character's prissy little personality decided to dig in to the plot and pull her own weight. That stuck-up garden party belle stood up off the page and taught herself how to cuss. She'd have done any sailor proud, too.

Watching the little lady perform represented one of those moments when it felt as if I was taking dictation as opposed to writing fiction. You see, there are just some words that a woman of a certain age and upbringing will not allow to soil her fair lips, but my protag broke all of her former rules of decorum as she prepared to catch her husband and her competetion "en flagrante"...

(Dear God, please tell me my Mom doesn't read blogs...the hot flashes, yes, we'll blame it on those...)

excerpt:

...Then, I remembered that I wasn’t dressing for a dinner date. It could well be that trail of years stretching out behind me and Byron would go for naught by the end of this day.

Tears sprang to my eyes when I realized that I was donning armor for the fight of my life.

"That two-bit trollop,” I cursed. Somehow, my choice in swear words didn’t feel quite as vindicating as I’d hoped.

“That hussified jezebel,” I tried again.

Nope, not quite the word I was looking for.

“Fuck?”

No way, I thought. I’ve already used that word. Twice.

“CUNT,” I dared.

Oops. Now there’s a word. Outwardly, I recoiled in shock, lest Momma roll over in her grave.

But if the word fits…

“Just who the hell does that cunt think she is, moving in on my life? Over my fucking dead body!"

“There,” I said as I topped my ash blonde chignon with a black straw hat whose broad brim boasted a discrete sprinkling of linen flowers. “Cunt was exactly the word I was looking for.”

Momma would just have to get over it...

Back to the first rule of fiction--the protagonist must grow or change as a result of the story's action. Hmmmm. The belle formerly known as the lady with the stick up her backside says the dread C word. In doing so, the reader might actually BELIEVE it when she rebels against the status quo and breaks every single one of the rules of Deadiquette.

I think we're getting somewhere. Its about (fucking)time.

*please excuse the lack of italics when presenting the characters internal dialogue above. Blogger beta sucks toads and seems to be refusing to do its job of recognizing html 101.

**If you're thinking of switching to Blogger beta, don't. At least not yet. I can't comment on original Blogger blogs without making up a whole new identity, and folks on the old Blogger can't comment on mine most of the time. Its getting quite lonely out here in beta land...

***if the blogger beta police come after me as a result of my public blasphemy, please send cakes with embedded hacksaws to starmuse23@gmail.com

Today was an awful writing day.You see, the back porch roof on my less than a year old dream home collapsed the other day, necessitating that the nice builder people come and build me a nice, shiny, new porch roof.

Today, my house sounded like the entire cast of Riverdance was clogging in army boots on my rooftop. Since noise is apparently not in my muse's contract, I decided to do some research that I'd skipped over for the sake of staying focused on story during the first draft of The Book of Deadiquette.

Ever the diligent author-to-be, I busied myself learning about Gullah magik and herbal teas so that I could clear up one of the many "research this" notations scattered throughout my first draft.Good thing I did decide to look into these things, as I darned near poisoned my protag with a lethal mixture of jasmine and columbine. Granted, killing the protag off with a nice cup of herbal tea might have been an effective way to reduce word count--no protag, no story.

Anyhow, during my research, I came across a nice little bathtime potion that promises to ease the path to publication, fame and glory for the aspiring author. It's called the FAME AND GLORY BATH, and is the reported brainchild of sorceress Lexa Rosean (author of The Supermarket Sorceress series of books).

Fame And Glory Bath

Cut an apple in nine pieces, or alternately throw nine whole shiny apples into the tub. Use green and golden apples if you want your fame to come with some money attached. Then add nine bay leaves. Get in the tub and immerse yourself for exactly nine minutes, and then get out.

Supposedly this little Calgon moment is supposed to be particularly powerful for artists and writers.

Now I've long been a fan of the power of nine--the holy Trinity times three and all of that. Nine-ite that I am, I'm wondering if maybe it would behoove me to augment this nine-minute bath by doing it nine times for extra luck? Perhaps at 9am on the 9th day of the month, even? Or perhaps even internalize the magic and eat the apples in nine bites each after I'm done marinating? Ewww.....nix that.

Who said research is all about procrastination? Pfffffffffffffft.

Labors of Love

For most children, the beginning of summer represents a long season of possibilities. Early in June, my thirteen-year old daughter (who writes circles around me) tagged me to a NaNoWriMo Duel. In a nutshell, NaNoWriMo stands for National Novel Writing Month. Every year, in November, would-be novelists from all over the country challenge themselves to craft a novel in a month (50,000 words) and keep track of their progress on the NanoWriMo website.

I spend an awful lot of time worrying whether or not my daughter is "okey-dokey" with life. Her upbringing has never sailed an often navigated course. For those of you who don't know, Gina has two little brothers with autism. She's grown up inside of an often frenetic life that requires a whole lot of giving from her and precious little take. So I not only stop to relish the rare events she asks to "take" a little--I dive in head first.

That my daughter wanted to train for such a monumental event *with* me spoke volumes. She wanted to celebrate her artist within, and she wanted to do so with me. For once, here was a place where I could serve as my daughter's role model. So we spent our summer stealing bits of time a long walk to talk plot, or to sit by the pool allowing our imaginations to run wild. We'd invent obstacles and motivations, and develop dimensional characters designed only to delight ourselves.

On days when walking was not an option, and the boys needs would not allow us one moment to sneak away, we'd have a writing party after Gina's brothers had finally fallen asleep. Some days, we even employed instant messaging to share our thoughts from her upstairs lair to mine downstairs.

If I am to be truly honest, my effort to feed my daughter's muse was not only for her benefit. I needed this time, too. The often bitter advocacy wars related to autism can consume my every waking moment. As a writer, I needed to be challenged, because I'd allowed life obstacles to lock my daughter's favorite part of me away. Instead of working my way out of my quagmire, I stirred myself into a major writing funk. I poured out my writer's angst to anyone who would listen to me (the garden statuary, mostly). I bemoaned my utter inability to craft more than one page of coherent words in a week's time. If I pushed myself to create more, my cold-hearted bitch of a muse left me high and dry.

In short, I was one burned out super-mom. And my daughter saw right through me. I accepted her challenge so that both of us might learn that much of our life's course is based on the choices we make.

We chose November.

As the summer drew to a close, and NaNoWriMo loomed ahead of me, I chained the evil bitch muse to my bedpost and ball gagged her. ( Kinky, yes, but highly effective). Freed from obsessing about creative inspiration and large blocks of free time, I put myself on a word count "stamina building" program. I decided to I extend my writing by a half-page per day, even if that extra half-page meant laying words on paper in fifteen minute chunks. I did this by working on my blogs, writing meaningless dribble, or writing a story to read to my kids (one of them which I actually LOVE).

Yesterday I met my pre-Nanowrimo goal. I wrote twenty typed, double-spaced pages in one day, on the same story. I even solved a plot problem in the process. I laughed a lot. I had scads of fun. My daughter and I crawled into the center of my bed last night, and she hooted and howled as I read my work to her.

"Mommy, I want to be like you when I'm grown. You're so cool."

Here's to November, baby girl.

The Baron of Balls or How Living Hard Makes Writing Easy

There's nothing like writing what you know. And I, for one, have to know first-hand the man who holds the esteemed title of "Baron of Balls." I have no doubt that this year's Testicle Festival will find its way into the pages of one of my books. Held every year in Clinton, Montana at the Rock Creek Lodge, the "testy festy," as it's locally known, is a five-day extravaganza devoted to consuming mass quantities of Rocky Mountain Oysters. That's bull testicles, folks.

Yet, the most muse inspiring portion of this ballsy event is not bovine in nature. Reportedly, the old "Testy Festy" has earned a rep for getting a tad out of hand. Local mountain men and women use the festival as an excuse to get rip-roaring drunk, shed clothing and engage in naughty testicular competitions.

Woo-hoo, sounds like my kind of party! Care to join me in a little up close and personal inspiration gathering? Rumor has it that field research is tax deductible.

Rewrite Progress--4900 words. Thinking of auctioning my family off on e-bay. :)

A Big,Fat Piece of Cold, Hard Truth

I have a confession to make.

Sometimes, I am downright mean to people who whine that their lives won't let them write. I get tired of hearing the various conspiratorial life obstacles would-be writers blame for circumventing their dreams. I probably show such little patience for the blame game because I'm as guilty of leaning on those obstacles as the next aspiring writer.

One day my husband asked how far along I was in completing a painful and awfully close to home story that's haunted me for a while. While the story is ultimately hopeful, its progression begins in tragedy. The story centers around two parents, who love each other and love their severely autistic child, but come drawn into bitter battle over the how far medical science should go to intervene when this disabled child falls into a semi-conscious state. Michael Schiavo had just re-emerged on the news radar, providing another reminder that Willo' the Wisp's (book's title) time was now. I'd already been kicking myself for avoiding returning to the manuscript. So beyond having the plot, synopsis and two agonizing to write chapters sitting on my hard drive, I'd wasted an awful lot of time doing everything imaginable to avoid diving into that story.

"How far have I gotten? How far?," I ranted. "You're gone all the time. I have three kids here, two of them autistic, and one of them in puberty. The school dumps crisis after crisis on me and you want to know my f***ing word count? And did I mention that the last time I actually had a chance to write, you used it up to go to Home Depot? Try doing your job under those conditions."

Then that man my mother told me not to marry said the most vile thing any would be writer ever heard. "If you aren't writing its only because you don't want to."

Thud.

"What a horrible, rotten, low-down thing to say!" I stomped around the house for days, proving exactly how little time I had to spend creating. The flames of my rage drove me like a dervish as I whirled through every room. I cleaned closets, rearranged rooms, boxed up years of outgrown clothing, and saw the bottom of the laundry hamper for the first time since Monica's dress got stained.

What my husband said to me represented a very low blow. It was pretty hard to swallow the fact that someone who is supposed to love me would serve me up a big, fat piece of cold, hard truth. Admitting to myself that the pompous one had made a dead-on observation regarding my stalling tactics just plain hurt. Blaming life for my paucity of writing time allowed me to turn my back on the real truth for years. You see, not writing at all is far easier than to risk falling butt first into failure.

A new book fell into my hands not so long ago. It was a thin paperback, very simply bound. Someone actually thought my nonverbal son might enjoy it. And he did, immensely. We both cried as we read that book together.

The writing was spare in the way of haiku. I'd have enjoyed the work even had I not read the back cover copy. You see, the fact that this author's thoughts ever made it onto paper in the first place is nothing short of miraculous.

The Diving Bell and the Butterfly was written by a paralyzed, nearly vegetative author from what would soon become his death bed. After a catclysmic neurological event left him paralyzed everywhere but his left eye, he dictated this luminous contribution to literature to an assistant without speaking, signing, or even pointing to a single word. He communicated his artistic vision by blinking a code with his left eye designed to tell an assistant what letter it was that he wanted committed to paper.

Read it.

If you still doubt that your life will never allow you to orchestrate a way to lay words onto paper, then I promise you that you never will.

No more excuses.

Go write.

Great Writing Advice Linky Dink of the Day

Don't miss this one. Honestly, the finalized first line of the novel discussed here belongs in my OPFL hall of fame!

Evolution of a Query and a First Novel

Hope Floats. (But my first line sank!)

Yesterday, I dumped the first line of Draft #1 on you,with a promise to re-visit it today. Sadly, my opinion of my work continues to bother me for a number of reasons, beyond its general state of sucking blowfish.

First, there's the "second person" voice to contend with. Normally, stepping outside of story to address the reader directly wouldn't represent my first choice of viewpoint. However, when I first dug into creating the original manuscript, I wanted to move forward into the thick of the plot as quickly as I could.

I'm the kind writer who has bumped into sagging middle syndrome more than once. And no, I'm not talking about my gut. I had hoped that by erupting out of the starting gate as if the hounds of hell yipped at my heels, sheer momentum would force me to tumble over my typical page 125 existential crisis. Hopefully, before the magic of my story got away from me. And it worked! I learned something new. However, I also learned that there is a huge flip side to runaway writing. My slop factor tends to increase proportionate to my keyboard velocity. (Where I'm from slop is what we feed hogs.)

Since I'm savant at speed typing, I'm able to lay down thoughts nearly as fast as the words flood into my mind. For that reason my writing comes out sounding like I'm talking directly to my reader. Now granted, this can sometimes be a good thing. My internal editor doesn't have a prayer of keeping up with the flow of my writing, so I don't struggle much with the sadistic witch anymore.

My old crit group used to say that reading something I'd written felt like sitting across the table from me listening to me talk. I do like that kind of intimacy in a story, particularly in a romance. Still, beginning a book with second-person writing flirts with a risk humongoid enough to warrant automatic REJECTION. Since I'm not a "known entity" in the genre I'm trying to break into, it would most likely behoove me to choose another approach.

Second, my writing reads very "southern." Almost painfully so. Yes, this is how I talk. I can't help myself there. But I think I could tone it down a bit as I polish this manuscript. Fortunately, the characters are traipsing about South Carolina's low country. They can get away with a "you all" every now and then.

Lastly, I have to ease into chapter one's reincarnation a renegade character (Ceci) who popped up during the first write of chapter three. Ceci got ballsy in her insistence that she'd play significantly in the book's movement towards the denoument. I can't very well do the surprise ending without her, so it wouldn't be wise to dump her into the picture like a big old red herring to neatly wind up my story. So, it would be wise to introduce Ceci from the get go, don't you think? (There's that second person voice sneaking out again!).

As my original draft stands, my first line read's like this: If you’re sitting there thinking that your love life is beyond reproach, then you’d best just sit down and cut yourself a big old slice of humble pie, because you’re going to be chomping on it come sundown.

Whew. Reading it still makes me shudder. Let me try this again. Shorter this time:

Saying that my love life was beyond approach was my first mistake.

Gak. First off, I don't like beginning sentences with "ing" words. Not that I'm not guilty of doing exactly that, but certainly never for a lead in. Still, the gist of the idea is a bit better.

To tell God and anybody else who would listen that my love life was beyond reproach was the first mistake I made as I prepared to meet my fortieth birthday.

Yawn. Granted, the line has moved out of first person, and reads much less like southernese. While I feel more like my main character has a comeuppance story to tell, the passive feel of it doesn't get me any closer to introducing Ceci on the first page. Now this new opening needs a major was-ectomy. Scratch it.

What if the reader's suspicion that Darcy is hurting for a comeuppance comes out of Ceci's mouth instead of Darcy's? Now, this I like. If I can manage to set the concepts of the original first paragraph into an exchange between Ceci and Darcy, then I've moved away from a retelling of events, and into the magical realm of show. My penchant for was-ing my reader into slamming my book shut dies a natural death.

Scene setting and dialogue to initiate charactization? Woah. An editor wrote that on one of my manucripts once. could it be....that she knew whereof she spoke?

I probably nailed my own casket shut when I went on and on to Ceci about the beatific state of my marriage to Byron. (Beyond the cliche of "nail the casket shut", I like where this is going...)

"Lord, Ceci" I sighed as she pushed my freshly low-lighted head back over the rinse sink. "Even if I died and went to Heaven this very moment, I couldn't want for more bliss than I've already known."

Ceci yanked my soaking wet head up from the sink, forcing me to look her eye to eye. "Girl, keep on like that, you'll be chomping on humble pie come sundown."

Ahhhh, now we're getting somewhere. The exchange has established that Ceci is probably a hairdresser (which she is), and that Darcy likely has a very inflated opinion of her own marriage. Nobody's marriage is perfect. A comeuppance tale makes itself imminent.

The fact that Darcy is getting low lights gives me a bit of leeway to begin to insert hints about her coloring. I'm thinking we have a bit of a slave to her own good looks on our hands, too.

I'm starting to like this approach. Dialogue. Action. Character development. Now here's some writing I can begin to work with. While the first line doesn't have the gotcha factor I envisioned, its a far cry better than my original start.

Not bad for a second draft. I think I'll run with it.

The OPFL Nominees Are...

I finally re-opened my Book of Deadiquette manuscript file today. Smug in the illusion that the world had never seen a more diligent author, I put aside my typical weekend pursuits (laundry and lunch box washing) so that I could dig into these dreaded, albeit inevitable revisions.

It didn't require my reading more than one line of my own prose for self-flagellating humility to come along and rock my confidence. There really is no denying the fact that my first line sucks blowfish.

Considering that my book currently sits at 70,000 unedited words, I'm humbled enough to realize that this revision effort could take a good bit longer than I expected. Apparently getting the bare bones of my story onto paper represented the easy part of the creative process.

Now the real work begins. Somehow, I have to make a good storyline readable and engaging.

Before I made the decision to dive head first back into my aspiring novelist career after having spent ten years away, I did do my homework. While writing with any kind of consistency felt pretty impossible as I raised and advocated for two kids with autism, I never stopped studying craft. I'm well aware all of the dire warnings that remind me if I am to grab an editor's attention, I have approximately one line of twelve-point Times New Roman to do it with. Is it any wonder that I've now developed an acute case of first line anxiety?

So here I sit, with dozens of my favoritest favorite books piled around me, and with God as my witness, I have eaten up my entire first day of scheduled revisions voyeuristically perusing OPFL's (other people's first lines). I'm trying to glean for myself why it is that some first lines have the power to send me running for the nearest cash register while others leave me so unmoved that I return them to their places on the bookstore shelf.

I doubt that I'm the first writer to hate her own manuscript beginning with word one, so in hopes that another might benefit from the conundrum I face today, I'm going to share some amazing first lines.

While this quest didn't get me any closer to my sixty-days to completed second draft goal, it certainly has given me a bit of new insight into how writers command readers, and hopefully why editors choose the manuscripts that they do.

So here they are, my personal nominations for Best OPFL's. For me, each is imbued with elusive power to not only draw a reader's interest, but also to compel the irresistable urge to turn the page.

Genre: paranormal chick lit:
"The Day I died started out bad and got worse in a hurry"
Undead and Unwed ( by Mary Janice Davidson).
This line speaks of magic in an Every Woman kind of way. Haven't we ALL had days like this? And don't we all want a bit of magic to come whisk us away now and again?

Genre: short story
Mavis McPherson is locked in the bathroom and will not come out.
(Ordinary Life: Stories, A Love Story by Elizabeth Berg)
Now I, for one, want to know what in the hell is up with Mavis! By the sounds of her name, it appears that she may have been around the block a time or two. Forget chic lit, I see a hen's tale coming on, and I want to know more.

Genre: women's fiction:
Until I met Grace Russo, I did not know that my Lacoste shirts did not have to be dry-cleaned.
(Full of Grace, A Novel, Dorothea Benton Frank)
From the first line, I'm dying to know exactly who Grace Russo is, as well as why any woman in her right mind would pay good money to dry clean Lacoste! So much so that I purchased this book in hardcover. With no discount.

Genre: thriller:
Scott Duncan sat across from the killer.
(Just One Look, Harlan Coben)
Did you say killer? Nothing like starting the reader off in the thick of the plot.

Nonfiction:
Let's say a spaceship lands next to you on the coffee table (does size matter?) and inside is The Universal Book of Everything.
(What the Bleep do We Know?, William Arntz, Betsy Chasse, Mark Vincente)
Don't know about ya'll, but The Universal Book of Everything is right up there on my wish list with the Holy Grail. That, and finding a bra that enhances something other than back rolls.

Middle Grade Children's Book:
When May died, Ob came back to the trailer, got out of his good suit, and into his regular clothes, then went and sat in the Chevy for the rest of the night.
(Missing May, Cynthia Rylant)
Poor Ob! Who was May, why did she die, and what made Ob love her so much that he'd sleep in a Chevy? (A Lamborghini, I could understand, but a Chevy?)

Paranormal Romance Novella:
The dirty, sweat-soaked demon dropped to his knees.
(Mysteria: Mortal in Mysteria, Susan Grant)
Wow. I like demons. Especially sweaty ones on their knees. Hubba Bubba, gimme more! :)

Young Adult:
God, I hate School.
(Oh My Goth, Gina Showalter)
Show me one teenager who can't sympathize with such a universal sentiment. My daughter read, and re-read this book in the space of 24 hours. So natch, I had to steal it from her in order to glean for myself how Ms. Showalter managed to come between my angst ridden, would be Goth girl (if she hadn't been cursed with Abercrombie and Fitch genes) and her love affair with the internet.

With my new enlightenment regarding OPFL's that I wish had been my own, I returned back to my own first line. As the eager writer in me erupted out of the starting gate, my (humble, I swear) beginning stood like this:

If you’re sitting there thinking that your love life is beyond reproach, then you’d best just sit down and cut yourself a big old slice of humble pie, because you’re going to be chomping on it come sundown.

I could argue that there are worse first lines out there, but I also have to acknowledge that this one is far from magical.

Tomorrow, I'll revisit my first line, as well as the following paragraphs. I already know that I have to introduce my protag's best friend much quicker than I did in Drafty old Draft 1, as she suddenly popped onto the reader's radar, completely unannounced, in chapter 3. (That scene stealing bitch!)

In the meantime, tell me about your favorite first lines. You can use your own, or those of an author whose work you love.

I really do want to know what sends you to page two.

Celtic Horoscope (Today's excuse for not revising my manuscript!)

I'm taking my Celtic horoscope as a Karmic message that maybe today wasn't the best day in the world for revisions! (Or, alternatively, I'll watch you try to write while chasing two autistic kids and one surly thirteen year old!) You Are A Lime Tree

You are intelligent, hard working, and innately successful.You try to change what you can in life - and you accept what you can't change.Tough on the outside, you are actually soft and relenting.Jealous at times, you are extremely loyal and giving to those you love.You have many talents, but you don't have enough time to use them.

What's" Your Celtic Horoscope?

Original Synopsis

In the same breath that a tawdry turn of events forces Darcy Burke to admit that somewhere along the way, her perfect spouse has turned into a belly-crawling philanderer, she drops dead.

Adam, the charismatic Reaper has who come to collect Darcy, is hunk-a-licious enough to charm most any woman into dying without a fight. However, Darcy is not most women, and she puts up an ill-fated, albeit admirable fight for her life.

Adam's sworn duty to escort Darcy to the Afterlife Admissions Administration puts a damper on Darcy’s murderous desire to bring her husband’s affair to a screeching halt. Dead or not, she has no intention of making it easy for her spouse to insert his new lover into the home she’s spent a lifetime creating.

Unfortunately for Darcy, there has been a serious software malfunction at the Afterlife Admissions Bureau. Apparently the backup systems show that Darcy isn’t supposed to be dead. Adam has made a terrible mistake. While dead is indeed dead, Darcy is refused admittance to Here-After because The Book of Deadiquette dictates that no soul shall enter Here-After until their official reason for living is realized.

Adam is ordered to escort an embittered Darcy back to Earth so that she may complete her life’s mission. The problem is, Darcy and the other souls she meets up with in Limbo are still dead, and are therefore bound to behave within the limits of decorum set forth by the Book of Deadiquette. Even if the souls do discover what their life missions are, completing them certainly won't be a cake walk.

Once, Adam enjoyed favored angel status in the Here-After. He earned demotion to reaper status when he was accused of having broken the heart of the Maker's favorite cherub. Adam has been cursed to remain a reaper until he can cause a human soul turn her back on the living out of love for him.

The problem is that human souls either can't see Adam, refuse to see him, or just plain don't believe in him. That leaves some pretty slim pickings until Adam realizes that Darcy and her cohorts may possess the singular caveat which could make it possible for him to reclaim his angelic powers. The Maker's curse never exactly specified that the human soul who came to love Adam and follow him into Death had to be a living one.

When Darcy and her friends abandon their pursuing their life missions and enter into a pact with the Devil in exchange for the power to manifest to the living, all the rules for governing the dead are thrown to the wind. In the resulting battle for Darcy’s immortal heart and soul, all Hell breaks loose on Earth, in the Here-After, and everywhere in between.