storyfires

My daughter's History teacher goes on a class-long rampage if a student mentions the word "Twilight." Not because she thinks the last book is somewhat sexually explicit for 13-year-olds, or because the romance is a tad over the top. She thinks Edward is "too perfect," which gives kids "an unrealistic view of the world." My daughter rolls her eyes as she tells me this. Er, by the way, did we forget Edward is a vampire? He sucks blood for dinner. Craves his girlfriend's blood. But no, the story isn't realistic. The genre is called Fantasy. Definitely not History. Sigh. Another fantasy-basher. I couldn't help thinking about the anti-fantasy proselyters that came to my door a couple of years ago. And since I'm still trying to finish up my novel to send off by the end of the month, I thought I'd rerun this post. *                    *         ...

I had a good marathon weekend before last. How about you? Met my goal: finished my shotgun phase of revisions; fixed all the piddly things I'd made notes to myself to fix and had been putting off for later; ready to print! in prep for the next phase of revisions. Then Spring break happened and 1. I broke my printer while printing out my book. *Note: that's not, "The printer broke," it's "I broke the printer," as in, I yanked out some already printed pieces of my book that were getting sucked back in and that's when I heard a crack. And then my printer wouldn't feed paper any more. And I had lost my receipt. And hadn't bothered to register my product when I bought it (who does that?). So they couldn't look it up. (Next time just tape the receipt and protection plan to the bottom of the printer, they told me. Duh. You idiot.) 2. So I had to go out and buy a freaking new one. Which was a downgrade that cost as much as the last nice...

Hey, I'm doing a writing marathon this weekend. Decided...um, just this minute. I wish It was Carol Lynch Williams's and Ann Dee Ellis's idea, and they're throwing a dinner if you meet your goal, so consider dumping everything and joining the marathon. Here's the link that tells what you have to do. It's free, and you set your own rules/goals, so how can you lose? I'm doing this because I need a deadline.   An excuse not to cook dinner or clean my house for three days is always nice, too. Do I need an excuse? No. But it sounds slightly better than the usual: my mom's a writer so it always looks like this around here. My goals for the marathon: finish my current polishing-up run-through of my novel and go back and fix all bajillion things I made notes to myself to fix, so I'll be ready by Monday to print out my WIP for yet another run-through. Goals are good, but you don't have to do a writing marathon to have t...

Saturday: 74 degrees and the magnolias popped.  Today: my poor, frozen magnolias. And what's left of the daffodils. Hello, Spring! April's writing goal: to finish my Barefoot revisions and send them to Steve by the end of the month.

It's 12:15 am and I'm drinking green smoothie and writing a blog post. Robert Frost fit my mood. Simple, elegant, eloquent. And depressing. Perfect. Acquainted with the Night   ...