10.8.13

I've always loved haystacks. Probably a leftover from growing up in Colorado, and a lingering fascination with Van Gogh. I love that Tennessee has long, open fields with giant rolls of hay. And at sunset, driving by the green fields with their yellow haystacks, the sun dipping into the horizon, casting the gloaming mists -- I'm telling you, it's worth taking a drive to see. I was lucky enough to get caught in traffic on one such road this evening, and it was glorious.

Lots done today, some with the secret project, some on SHADOWS, which I now have back in its final form before it goes to print. One last chance to make sure everything is in agreement, makes sense, and there are no typos. Which we all know is futile; typos breed. But I'll do my best. We had a whopper in THE FINAL CUT, one of those head-smackers that was so egregious, we have no idea how it passed the censors. But it did, and I feel so silly. Alas.

Great yin yoga session with my beloved guru this afternoon. There was a discussion of the Buddhist concept of suffering, one I'm quite interested in. At its most basic, life is life. There are ups and downs. Bad things happen - it's inevitable. There is death, and illness. Things don't go our way. How we choose to deal with those inevitabilities is what suffering is about. We don't have to suffer. We can accept the inevitable and not turn into drama lamas. It's a fun concept, one I've been interested in for a long time now.  

Which made me wonder if it's just my temperament that attracts me to Buddhism. I am at heart a happy person. Happy because I choose to be. Happy because it feels better to be happy than it does to feel sad. I think my happiness is sometimes mistaken for extroversion, which is another interesting concept I need to meditate on. I feel like I am a classic introvert, but no one who meets me ever believes that. Something to think about.

Packing tonight. Which means I have to run, and fold about a thousand loads of clothes. But really quick, we went to see Queens of the Stone Age last night, and it was a wonderful concert. Loved it. Josh Homme is dead sexy, and the band was tight. Want a modern day American rocker, tattooed, smoking version of Jamie Fraser? Josh Homme's your guy. 

Sweet dreams! 

10.7.13

One of those odd days when you work and work yet it doesn't feel like anything was really done. I stared at the manuscript, fiddled with the outline, worried a plot point, none of which netted any actual words. Probably because of the overload Sunday, my poor brain isn't exactly ready to start churning out more new stuff. Which simply will not do. 

I've never been one to wait for the Muse to come visiting, I generally find her, pin her down and force the phrases from her lips. But today it just wasn't happening. So I did yoga, and laundry, and straightened the house, and took a long lunch with a book. 

Confession. I've begun reading OUTLANDER again. Mostly because of the Scotland trip, but also because, well, I do so love realistic heroes. Jamie Fraser may be the ultimate warrior poet laird, but he is also incredibly human, with tics and issues and weaknesses. Claire too is as real as it gets, a woman's woman, with her own massive flaws and acerbic wit.  

Which brings me to love. I was in savasana today (come on, admit it, you do yoga to get to savasana, don't you?) listening to Jeff Buckley's Hallelujah, thinking about how powerful women are. That our touch can draw a hallelujah from the lips of our lover. That we can love until it hurts, and be loved in return. That there is a perfect creature out there who will move hell and earth for us, who will bleed for us, bodily protect us, and hold us close in the night.

We misuse love. Take it for granted. We live in an easier time now, where our significant others don't need to take up swords and dirk to defend us in our homes, and much of our conversation revolves around what to pick up for dinner, and how cool last night's episode of HOMELAND was or what the kid's did in school today.

Have you ever stopped and thought about it? What your man (or woman, of course) would do for you? What you would do for them? How far your love goes? 

One of the things I adore about the OUTLANDER series is this question of love. What does it mean? How does it manifest itself? And how far will you go to protect it? It is our lifeblood, our tie that binds. It is our reason for living. Without it, life is a cold place. Be it the love of a good spouse, lover, a friend, a mother or father, even a child, love is the reason we do most everything.  

Tell him you love him tonight. Show him how much. See if you can wrench a hallelujah from his lips. And mark the day well spent. Sometimes, it's about more than just words.

10.6.13

Decent work day today, considering it's Sunday. Finished the copyedits on WHEN SHADOWS FALL - hit a small snafu so hopefully that will be worked out tomorrow. I do feel sorry for my Canadian copyeditors--if the amount of red is any indication, Southern speak must drive them up the wall. 

Copyedits are a tricky thing. Grammatically correct verbiage isn't necessarily right for the story, or for the writer. It's a constant push and pull for me, because what's technically correct isn't necessarily how people talk, think and sound. And commas. Dear God, the commas. I put them in when I wanted the reader to mentally pause. It gives a certain rhythm to the text. I think to this poor CE, it must have looked like I was just employing the Oxford comma at will.

And I am not a fan of the semi-colon, either. They should be used sparingly, only if absolutely necessary. There's still too many but thank goodness there's one more shot at the book before it goes to the proofers and printers. We'll be able to make sure that between the two of us we haven't screwed things up too badly.  No matter what, errors manage to make it into the finished product, which drives us all batty, because we try so very hard to make things perfect.

Wrote a synopsis, and updated my bio.  Contemplated the proposal for my next Sam books as well. I need to get that polished and sent in. I like the story, it will be a fun one to write.

Then was completely possessed with an unholy urge to lay out my clothes for the trip this week. What trip, you ask? Well, YARD OF GRAVES has a section set in Scotland, and intrepid writer Barbie must go do some research. It should be a fine week. There are several sweaters in the stack on my dresser. I do hope there's room for them all. 

Taped the game, don't know how my Titans did yet. DH had to run to his parents, so I await his return with breathless anticipation so we can watch. Sadly, can't watch my Broncos either, because I'll find out the score of the Titans game. Oh, the sacrifices we make...

Off to read and contemplate dinner. Sweet dreams! 

10.5.13

Got to see one of my favorite people in Nashville today - my dear friend Chuck Beard -  at our lovely unique East Side Story bookstore. If you're in Nashville, you really do need to stop by and visit with Chuck. The store only stocks books by Nashville/Tennessee authors. It's wonderful, and I'm honored to be shelved there. 

Ran a million errands this morning, and briefly went front door shopping. I say briefly, because we were stymied by a rather uncooperative salesman - and I use that term loosely - who couldn't give us a price list for the door we wanted because someone had to come out to the house and measure first. He didn't understand we'd brought the measurements already, and knew exactly what we needed, because our contractor gave them to us. Sigh. New meaning to obtuse angles, yes?

After much teeth gnashing (and clear procrastination) finally settled down and wrote the outline for YARD OF GRAVES. Catherine and I have already plotted the whole book out, I know what's happening, I've started writing, but we still needed an outline. I suck at outlines. And synopses. I have to write one of those tomorrow. Wail. 

But said outline is done, only five pages longer than it was supposed to be, and I'm happy with it, and CC will snit, and we'll have something fabulous to work with, and all will be well in the world.

UT made a game out of their outing with Georgia, which was quite fun. Haven't gone to a bar to watch a UT game in a long time, it was nice to be among the orange brotherhood for the second half. (I was starving. There was a bar nearby. Don't judge.)

And now to read, and then to bed, and up an at the copyedits tomorrow. Picking them up and knocking them down.  

Sweet dreams!  

10.4.13

Superb, albeit crazy, day. Secret project is outta here, and of course, as it went away, in came the copyedits for WHEN SHADOWS FALL. And there's that pesky outline that needs to be written for YARD OF GRAVES. And a synopsis and bio... all due Monday. Yeaaaaaaahhhhh. 

So in response to this excessive, unnatural, and some may say untoward overstimulation, my poor, taxed little brain said, "STOP EVERYTHING. LAY ON THE COUCH AND WATCH VAMPIRE DIARIES."

And so I did.

Today was a day of being wrong. Writer Barbie did math, and came up quite short, much to everyone's amusement. Who the hell decided that a 12 scale must be used to measure height?

And apparently I had the title wrong on Nora Ephron's book. It's actually titled I FEEL BAD ABOUT MY NECK. What's interesting is she uses the word hate, quite liberally, when discussing her neck, and various other things she really, really, really didn't like. I'm kind of a wuss when it comes to using the word hate. I must feel quite strongly toward a person, place, or thing to use it. So my taxed brain just replaced the slightly nicer words of the title with her own from the book. Strange how the mind plays tricks like that. 

Anyway, I finished the book. It made me sad. It made me worry about getting older. It's an inevitability that these things will happen - these things, they do 'appen - so I am going into the weekend with great joy and bliss that as of this moment, I do not feel bad about my neck. As a matter of fact, I kind of like my neck. But believe me, I will be slathering it in La Mer from here on out, so we don't run into that problem down the road. That is all. 

Probably time to open some wine. A long working weekend ahead. Happy Friday to you.

Sweet dreams!