R.L. LaFevers AKA Robin

Robin's Theo launch party went very well last night. I was going to post some photos, but the USB cord for my camera is missing. It has to be around here somewhere! I will post some pix and a little bit about it this weekend as soon as I find it

I had a long and busy week and I have a busy weekend ahead of me. Hopefully Sunday night I'll have a little time to relax. Happy Friday everyone.

Three Cheers for Robin and Theo!

I'm so excited for my friend Robin! She's just released her sixth children's book, but her first with Houghton Mifflin. They love her new Book, Theodisia Throckmorten and the Serpents of Chaos so much, they are throwing her a Book Launch Party tomorrow night. It matters little to me that it's a work night, that I always get lost in LA County and that I have no clue where I'm going, I simply MUST be there to cheer her on!

Robin's had the idea for this book for quite some time, but it took a while for her to sell it. All of us who'd read excerpts knew it was pure gold, but sometimes it takes publishers a little longer to figure out what the rest of us already know. Three cheers for Houghton Mifflin for buying this incredible book! Three cheers for RL LaFevers for giving children such wonderful books to read! And three cheers for Theo, for being such a great role model for girls!

Lunch

Michele and I had a fantabulous lunch. It lasted our usual 4 hours. I don't know why that is. We'll gab and gab and then order and gab. And then eat and gab. And then maybe share dessert and gab. Finally one of us will say, "What time is it, anyway?" and it's always about 4 hours. Amazing!

We tried to figure out how long it's been since we've seen each other in person and we think maybe for my birthday in July. Wow! I still can't believe it. We're never going that long between meeting up again!

The lunch place we picked ended up being exactly in the middle, which is great. There are a ton of restaurants in the area, so we can meet there regularly and never get bored with the menu. :)

Michele looks great and it was just so nice to see her in person. She has lots of hair now! Did I mention how good it was to see her in person? Oh yeah. :)

We also decided that we are going to check in with each other every single day with writing updates. In order to make sure we work on our WIPs every day, we set ridiculously the small goal of 15 minutes per day for each of us. We are going to e-mail each other every day, whether we meet our goal or not. We also discussed Katy's motivator--gold stars on a calendar every day we meet our goal, which we both agreed was a good idea. Perhaps I'll go pick up some tomorrow.

I better go now. I must put in my 15 minutes before bed so I can check in with Michele.

!!!

I'm having lunch with Michele tomorrow! Squee!!!

BTW, Michele's Blogging again. Please welcome her back!

Elizabeth Edwards

In less than two hours, John Edwards is going to make an announcement about his wife Elizabeth's health. I believe in the power of prayer, white light, positive thoughts and karma. I am very sad to think--and I hope I'm wrong--that her cancer may have returned. She is an incredible person and the world needs more people like her. I hope the news is good news, or not-so-bad news. I hope John's announcement is just to keep the media from blowing things out of proportion. Mostly, I hope it's fantabulous news. No sign of cancer. All systems go!

I hope John's not dropping out of the race. I've liked him since he was running for president last time. I know Elizabeth wouldn't ask him to unless the news was very bad. I love that he makes helping the poor his biggest issue and I love his stand on everything else. Like his wife, I think he's a great thing in this world and he gives me hope.

Their family has been through so much. I hope and pray that they are not about to go though some more hard times in the near future.

What if...

As I continue to brainstorm my plot, I keep asking myself, "what if..." What if a you had werewolf genes and you didn't know it? What if you lived...oh, 25 or 30 years and one day you shapeshifted into a werewolf? What if all the people you trusted had been killed and you didn't know who to turn to?

Such is the case for a character in the manuscript I'm plotting. The only thing is, I sense that there's more to it than that, that that the character turns into a werewolf for the first time in the middle of the book. So, what happens before this? If you follow the rule of Start Where the Trouble Starts or Start On the Day That's Different as I do, it means I'll have to keep thinking, "What if..." for a while longer.

I'm liking the idea of her going outside her comfort zone. She has to of course. Her mother and her aunts have been killed and she's lived a pretty sheltered life. Not that she's naive, but she's lived her whole life in a small mountain town protected from the outside world. There's no one she can turn to in her area. Which will lead her to the heroine from my unfinished manuscript. (The one I set aside for a while.) Perhaps Roma or a member of her Pack can help her? This could work. I just have to find a reason why she'd go to her. Perhaps a mutual friend in Roma's Pack. It could work...

Hopefully, I'll come up with some more good stuff very soon. I'm anxious to start writing some of this. Perhaps I'll try my hand at a collage as well. I don't have a lot of collage ideas right now, and I'm thinking that might be the best time to do it--stream of consciousness time.

Plotting update

Hi there to my friends in Bloggerland. I thought I'd post a short update. I am very happy to report that I have plotted at least half of the bare bones of my next manuscript. And--get this--there's actual conflict in the story already! Go me! I'm particularly happy that I'm setting it in Roma's (my previous protagonist's) world, so the books can be connected. I was feeling guilty for putting Roma's book aside, but now I don't have to.

The new protagonist is a witch. Her photo--drawn by the fabulous artist Ericka Baque--is above. I have some supporting characters in Roma's story who are witches, but having a witch protagonist is going to be especially fun I think. I posted her photo on my Today's Beautiful Thing Blog, but I'll post her pic here too. She also reminds me of Kathy Valentine a lot. My fave pic on Kathy's website is the one where she's all in back, on the ground with one knee up, with her electric guitar. Kick ass! I'm really getting excited about this project.

a new way to write--for me

Since every manuscript is different, I've decided to try something new for my next one. I've been really blocked in plotting everything I write lately. I think that it might be because I know my characters first before the plot. Why not try to imagine a plot first and then add the characters after? It can't hurt. I've never been one to write plot-driven manuscripts ever--and even by trying this technique, I imagine the characters will take over as soon as I add them anyway--but maybe it'll help. I don't have anything to lose.

Whine!

I have some great characters with interesting backgrounds and a few ideas of what will happen in the WIP. Very few ideas. One or two ideas. Why, oh why is plotting so hard? I used to just sit down and write and the plotting would take care of itself. Lately the characters are just not cooperating.

I had 4 hours to myself tonight and all I did was type out answers to questions two of my friends wrote to help me with my plot. And bless them for doing it. They actually did help me, but I'm still confused. "Boy meets girl. Boy loses girl. Boy gets girl." Sounds so easy, doesn't it?

The next person who calls romance novels formulaic to my face is getting an earful from me. Where are these formulas and where can Adam, Cricket and I get one? We only need one of them to get this book written.

End whine. Thanks for listening.

Ann Coulter = Bigotry, Hatred & Lies

I am completely and thoroughly disgusted by this! I never thought I could have any less respect for Ann Coulter than I already do, but tonight she proved me wrong. She said this at the American Conservative Union's Political Action Conference. Will someone please tell me what is conservative about what she said? She always touts the fact that she's a Christian and that Democrats are "Godless." In what way, shape or form is attacking someone with an awful, bigotted word (that's a lie on top of it all) a way of showing her Christian moral values?

Ann, if I was a Republican, I'd be very angry with you tonight, but I'm a Democrat, so I'm not really all that surprised. After all, you're the same person who attacked the 9/11 widows. Here's a little tip for you Ann, try asking yourself what Jesus would do. He certainly wouldn't have said what you did tonight.

Update: The link didn't work, so I found another one. It should work now. Also, here is a great article courtesy of Melodye.

The Black Donnellys

I just watched the re-run of The Black Donnellys pilot tonight. (I'd seen part of it on Monday.) I must say, I think I love his show already. I surfed around for info and found out it has the same writers as Crash and Million Dollar Baby--two movies I thoroughly enjoyed. Monday nights just got interesting. Go NBC!

The music from the show was really great too. Here's a list I found from a BD Bulletin Board--yes, they already have one!

Carlos Santana feat. Rob Thomas - Smooth

Eminem - Lose Yourself

Jet - Are You Gonna Be My Girl (A personal fave--I love this CD)

Andain - Beautiful Things

Imogen Heap - The Moment I Said It

The Arcade Fire - Rebellion

The Mad Maggies- Sleepy Maggie (Fight in the beginning)

Arianna -Disc Aria 2

Mudmen- Lost (trailer song)

Snow Patrol - Open your eyes

And here's a link to one of their sites, The Firecracker Lounge

So, has anyone seen it? What do you think?