Do YOU Own Your Characters?

Been wanting to blog for the past week only haven’t been able to. Haven’t been able to find the time to because for the last two weeks I’ve been barely holding on to the wild stampede that’s my next book. And yes I am holding the reins and yes I am in charge and directing, but what I am not doing is yelling, whoa or cut that shi* out. Instead, I am slapping those reins and encouraging them to go, go, go. I am standing up in that wagon and screaming out Yippee Ki Yay until I am without a breath left. (Since I am speaking to mostly writers who well know their way around metaphors, I will only pause for the briefest of seconds and explain to the others, those horses are words, words in my book that at this exact second is running strong and full and breathing itself into a thing of true beauty.)

Now it is true, I do not know where the ride ends. Don’t want to. I want it full and exhilarating and exciting because I know if it is to me, it will be to them. (Them being the readers that I don’t know yet, but who are still my nearest and dearest bestest friends, friends that I would never take out on anything but the most exciting ride ever.)

And if it turns out where we are going is nothing but a big steaming poo pie, I will turn things around, go back a little ways, and then encourage all hell to break loose again.

That’s how I write. That’s how I roll. And to answer dear Mr. Nathan Bransford’s question, Do You Own Your Characters or Do Your Characters Own You, that’s all I got to say on that. Take it or leave it.

How about you? Do you own your characters? Is such a thing possible?

Read more...

Shanghi Girls and Lisa See

Here I go, again...
What I am supposed to be doing versus what I am actually doing. 

I am supposed to right now be writing. That’s what I got up early for and took a hot shower and did my hair for. (And when I say early I mean was dressed by 7:30) (And when I say hair, I actually mean ponytail.) But instead I am blogging. That’s right, blogging IS writing only it is not really writing because it is more like having the girls over and drinking wine only without having to clean your house first. Which I love. (Wine. Not cleaning.) (As if you didn’t know)

Read more...

Mesmerizing Coolness

Okay. Newest way to keep from jumping right into writing at 7:00 in the morning (used to be playing sudoku and  trying clothes on cyber-self) but now, browsing graphic design sites and looking at book covers. Doing it for hours. Okay. Only one hour, but an hour every day, which is at least 1 page worth of writing time. But can’t stop. Can’t stop thinking about my cover.

There was a time when holding a hundred of my own pages was enough to keep me happy for weeks. Okay, yes, still is. Only now I want something besides a staple in the corner. I want a book with a cover. A really cool cover. And yes, I know there are people who get paid a lot of money to design them, and that I’m not one of them.

Read more...

An End

Now that my book is done, or I should say, now that its passed from my hands and into someone else’s, I decided it’s time to go through all those binders that contain the outlines, the barely legible notes written on post-its in the middle of the night, the drawings and newspaper clippings, all tools I used to shape this book into something more than an idea dancing around in my head. Some are single words, others phrases so disconnected to me now, I don’t recognize where I was going with them. And a very few, amazingly good. Those I’m saving for the next book. Copying myself.

Read more...

Haiti's Earthquake

Image: New York Daily News

When we lived in Puerto Rico, our house was made from poured cement and cinder block. It was built to withstand hurricanes and it did, many times. The Hatians protected themselves from the same force of nature, only they were hit with another and the cinder blocks have come loose. They have buried a nation. As unimaginable as the devastation is, only a few dollars will help provide much needed medical and food supplies.  


I am sending something today. Please, if you can, join me.
Unicef 
World Vision 
Doctors Without Borders 
American Red Cross 

Read more...

My 46th Year

Every year on my birthday I do my New Years resolutions. My birthday is on January 5th, and since I’m usually busy taking down the tree, cooking, entertaining, it makes sense to wait. When I finally get around to it, I start at the mirror. I look in my face to see what the next birthday looks like. It's always written there. Never skipped one yet. After that, I make promises. How things are going to be different. How I’m not going to live in regret. How I am going to make every day an exciting adventure. And I believe it for a good long while. Months. And that works for me, but I didn’t do that this year. This year, no promises. This year I started a new tradition.

It is called What I Learned.

Like...

Read more...