Went to my first baseball game in at least five years today. Had the requisite Dodger dog and relished it. (Sorry for the bad pun but I just couldn't help it.)
The Dodgers lost to the Mets 12 to 1. Ouch. But I had a great time anyway. So maybe I no longer know anyone who is on the team. So maybe I don't even care anymore. But I do love the hum of the crowd, the babies, the fans in regalia, the hawkers, and the opportunity to boos and cheer as loud as I want.
You can tell by the picture, we sat in nosebleed, but the seats were still prime. The game was at just the right downward angle so that I could watch and knit at the same time without too much trouble. Okay, so I made a few mistakes but I caught them right away.
And I got an idea for a new story. I guess the Muse liked the Dodgers just fine, even though they were doing so badly. It wasn't the whole story, just a tickle--a main character and a modus operandi, but that's always a start for me. Except that I am not allowed to start doing anything with that idea. It needs to take its place in the queue because I've got lots of stories ahead of it. Lots and lots.
At midnight tonight it will be exactly thirty days until The Raven's Revenge is released in paperback. Wow. I can hardly believe it.
The digital release was exciting, but you can't hold an ebook in your hands unless you have something like a Kindle (which I don't), and even then it's not quite the same as being able to ruffle the pages, smell the paper, and lick the cover. (No I never have, but I do have an author friend who does.)
I know my publisher expects that the bulk of their sales will be from digital format, but I'm wondering if the American Title contest exposure will help boost the paperback sales.
I recently got a personal assistant to help me with my writing. Her name is Vicki. When I'm tired and need another perspective on the work, she patiently reads it to me, sometimes over and over again.
The best part is she never complains. She doesn't make suggestions. She doesn't try to line edit. She doesn't even change inflection from one read to the next. In fact, she'll bravely read the word get when I'm sure she can tell that I meant got. That makes it easy for me to find silly mistakes like that.
As often as I've offered to pay her for her hard work, she won't accept a salary. She also insists she doesn't need to eat or sleep and is available around the clock. She's really easy to find--especially in Scrivener, where she appears as soon as I click the microphone button.
Of course she isn't perfect. I discovered during a passage in my manuscript that included Mexican food that her accent is atrocious.
(Yes, that's supposed to be frijoles.) Once I stopped laughing long enough to get up off the floor, I had to restrain myself from seeing how she pronounced French . . . and German.
In the short time we've known each other, Vicki has become one of my BFFs. She's so wonderfully attentive, positive, and a huge source of support. I mean how many people can say this . . .
. . . with the same level of enthusiasm, no matter how many times you want them to repeat it?
I got tagged this week by blogpal Carleen Brice, so here goes . . .
Link the person who tagged you. Mention the rules in your blog. Tell about 6 unspectacular quirks of yours. Tag 6 following bloggers by linking them. Leave a comment on each of the tagged blogger's blogs letting them know they've been tagged.
1. The only TV show I watch with any regularity is The Dog Whisperer, and I don't have a dog. I haven't even lived with a dog since I was a teenager.
2. I'm really bad at names--so bad I've blanked on the names of dear friends, even close relatives--although I've never forgotten the names of my children or the DH. At least not yet.
3. I can't function until I've had my morning tea. Since the DH usually provides this isn't a problem. But when I get up early to write or he sleeps in, I'm a jet-lagged Zombie for the several hours until he gets up to make me tea, because it rarely occurs to me that I could actually propel myself into the kitchen combine boiling water with a teabag. (That's because I can't function until I've had my morning tea.)
4. I live in Los Angeles, the ultimate car city, and I no longer drive.
5. Which is likely a good thing considering I can get totally lost without even realizing it. I used to call the DH all the time asking him to look things up on a map because I was heading the wrong way fast. When I traveled to England with ERF (and she was but 13) she quickly took on all navigational tasks after realizing I was completely hopeless. What I need is a GPS implant. It's not a directional thing because I can almost always tell you where the ocean is (west), but it's like I have no directional memory.
6. I come from a long line of eccentrics so I think I'm normal. Honestly. It also means I can't come up with anything else for this. Those who know me, please feel free to add anything to the comments and I won't take it personally. Well, probably not. ;)
In the continuing saga of Lets Get This Book Done, I've got one chapter to rework and another to finish and then I'm pretty much done with Act 3.
Act 4 is a minefield, but I think it's a workable one (because I left a map . . . heh heh heh . . . always leave a map). Of the 10K words (or so) needed to finish it, I think most of the writing will be pretty straight forward. Of course, when I get there I'll know for sure.
In writing, it's best to keep one's eyes upon the road.
Once again, I could not hold myself back. In spite of the fact that I'm trying to make a mad dash toward the finish line of my book (which is more like a mad crawl, but I digress), I attended the L.A. Times Festival of Books yesterday.
Unfortunately, my usual accomplice (niece Anne) could not attend. Fortunately, friend Laura had a niece Anne who did attend, so I appreciated being able to borrow her for a moment here and there.
Because it's my day to blog at Titlewave, I saved the pics and most of the commentary to posted there. (So go there.)
However, I reserved one picture for here.
I took this at the booth of one of my favorite bookstores (Mysterious Galaxy) because I wanted to pay homage to the power of intention. I remember discovering J.A. Konrath when he did a gonzo booktour from way over here <--- to way over there --->, signing books along the way. (I think it was PBackWriter who quipped that if you could find an unsigned copy of one of his books it would be worth a fortune.) He has a dynamite blog about self-promotion that is worth reading. So, I was pleased to see his books because the space there was so limited. And it reminded me of the importance of believing in yourself. Thanks J. A.
I'd like to thank the Director who, during the Nalbandian-Rochus match at the Monte Carlo Open yesterday, kept camera 3 (or 2 or whatever it was) trained on the WT1so that BigTea and I were able to catch this glimpse of him interacting with a FATW2. It filled my heart with happy this morning.
---- 1. World Traveler (he's on the far left in gray) 2. Friend Along The Way
Here stands the mighty rhino: large, horned, and with a very thick skin. A noble beast. (Depicted here by Albrecht Durer, although he'd never seen the animal himself, but I digress.)
As authors we create worlds, characters, and entire situations out of our imaginations. We nurture these elements in our subconscious and then commit them to paper as story. Sometimes it takes us years to make the decision to show this to others. Sometimes we never do.
But maybe one day we muster up our courage and find someone to critique us and they do. How do we deal with the fact that they have suggestions on how to improve this gem, born from our creative soul? How do we deal with them not telling us it's perfect? How do we deal with an honest opinion that may be kind but suggests that we still have a lot of work to do on something we thought was done and perfect? (And why oh why did we even ask for someone to tell us what they think?)
The reason I ask is that it happened to me. In this case, I was the giver. The recipient was someone I don't know. They won the critique in a drawing. As with any critique I give (or contest entry I evaluate), I spent a lot of time forming my opinions and was very careful of how I presented them. In this case, the writing was lovely but the storytelling needed some help. But here's the rub. I sent off that critique a week ago and have not heard a peep from the recipient although they were always quick to write me back prior to that. And it's been worrying me off and on ever since. Because I wonder if, perhaps, their skin was so thin, they were hurt by my comments and suggestions.
Or maybe it's my skin that's thin since I've been worrying about it.
But . . . moving on. I've also been thinking about this because of the highly visible brouhaha that developed between Dear Author and Tess Gerritsen. I've always admired Tess for being frank on her blog, for sharing her ride, her wisdom, and her insecurities with us. But as a result of this cyber-skirmish, Tess indicates she will blog no longer. Perhaps her humor was in poor taste in the post that brought this to a head. Perhaps it was misunderstood. Whatever the case, she can't take the heat it has engendered. (For which, BTW, I make no judgment.) Still, it makes me pause. Here is a NYT best-selling author who doesn't have the rhinoceros skin necessary to have survived such a situation, and I hurt for her.
It could be that I'm spending more time thinking about this than I would normally because I just received that review from Romantic Times. As pleased as I am with what they said, I know there will be people who don't like my book as much. There may even be people who don't like it at all.
My career in Hollywood has shown me that it isn't easy being a public creative person. As I become more public, I wonder if I will handle the slings and arrows as well as I think I can. I haven't worked in tinseltown all these years for nothing. Have I?
I found out at the end of last week, that RAVEN received a Four Star review from Romantic Times BookReviews Magazine!
"A thief, a damsel in distress and plenty of conflict -- what more could a reader want? . . . Black adds sensuality and humor to this intriguing historical..."
---Faith V. Smith, Reviewer
Especially gratifying is that she noted the humor, which is so much a part of me, I don't always see it. I always worry that I'm so quirky (stop laughing!) others won't get it.
I have to say, that started off my weekend just right. I was jazzed not only by the review, but because I found out about it while this year's RT convention was going strong and they were celebrating their twenty-fifth anniversary. That's because it was fifteen years ago when I went to my one (and only) RT convention in San Diego and connected up with the romance writing community.
At the time I was writing a lusty saga about a woman who became a silent film star. She'd lost her mother during the San Francisco earthquake and fire of '06 and developed amnesia from the trauma. Adopted by a childless woman (with an evil husband) who lived in the Ojai region and studied Theosophy, my MC ran away upon this woman's death and ended up in the Venice area of Los Angeles. The hero was a half-owner and business side of a movie studio who drove a Stanley Steamer. His brother was the creative side of that studio. During the course of the story he died in a William Desmond Taylor style murder. (I don't remember having ever figured out who did it.) At any rate, I digress. I dropped this (very highly researched) story when the agent I met and pitched it to told me it wouldn't sell because it took place less than a hundred years ago. Within the next two years, I'd started writing RAVEN, which was the first book I ever managed to finish.
On the subject of finishing . . . I passed 52K words on the BTSNBN this weekend. Now that its going, OMG it's going. I thought it was going to come in around 60K, but now I'm thinking I might even hit 65k. Of course I'm worried to pieces that Act 3 will be the Most Boring Act of All Time, but I thought that about Act 2 and my CP and the DD assured me Act 2 was very exciting--maybe even more than Act 1.
This business of knowing what's going on when it's going on (with one's writing) is interesting. With the current opus, the layering is all happening at once, as if I know what I'm doing. I'm not sure that's true, but my subconscious is in the driver's seat and it seems to.
How about you? Do you layer as you go? Or do you layer by draft?
The day after the wedding was just as gorgeous, and we were fortunately in possession of a bit of time so we went to visit the elephant seals. There's a lovely spot just north of San Simeon where they congregate. Earlier in the year whole families are present, but in April just the adolescents are left. Several of them were obviously molting, which looked as unsightly and uncomfortable as a serious case of acne.
From wikipedia:
Elephant seals are shielded from extreme cold by their blubber, more than by fur. The skin on top of this blubber and its hair molts periodically. It has to be re-grown by blood vessels reaching through the blubber. When molting occurs, the seal is susceptible to the cold, and must rest on land, in a safe place called a "haul-out." The type of molt which an elephant seal undergoes is a catastrophic molt. While this is taking place, the bulls actually cease fighting with one another.
We stayed and watched and I took pix because really, can one ever have too many pictures of elephant seals? What I couldn't bring back for you was the smell. Lucky, lucky, you.
Went to my first baseball game in at least five years today. Had the requisite Dodger dog and relished it. (Sorry for the bad pun but I just couldn't help it.)
As often as I've offered to pay her for her hard work, she won't accept a salary. She also insists she doesn't need to eat or sleep and is available around the clock. She's really easy to find--especially in 
Subscribe to The Gina Channel 
