Flood of Ideas

You ever have one of those days where the new story ideas are coming at you like a flood? I'm drowning. Not that I don't love the great ideas I'm having, but they're interfering with my ability to write the book I'm supposed to be concentrating on right now.

And another thing. With all these ideas, I'd either better live until I'm 120 or learn how to write faster, or part of my legacy will be a file full of unwritten stories.

Ack!

Today's Post

...is over at Tabula Rasa.

And for your viewing pleasure...

My Water Dish Got Moved

Maybe I'm the only one who has this problem, but I have a real problem changing spaces and then getting back into my groove. As you may know, I moved again. Since we rent, we move more frequently than most people - mainly because people keep selling their properties out from under us, but I digress. I didn't realize until recently how attached I grow to a certain place, and a certain routine in that place.

When I first started writing, I was single and living with my daughter in an apartment in the Salt Lake Valley. It was a tiny apartment and my bedroom/office was in the dining room. I'd write until I was too tired, then roll off my chair and into my bed. I wasn't really in any routine at the time, so when I got married and moved to Colorado, it wasn't very hard for me to slip into writing at our new home.

Flash forward a year. I've settled into a routine, and we've got an office where I can shut myself away to write. It was a converted garage - dark and faintly musty, with lots of spiders. I made it work for me. Then our landlady sold her house. After we moved, I had a devil of a time getting back into the writing again. I thought at the time I was just going through one of those periods where the writing is slow. I never thought about the change of venue as the reason. After all, writers can work anywhere. Give me a notepad and a pen, and I can write at the lake if I want to. Right?

Flash forward two years. I was in a routine again, and the writing was coming along fairly well. This time I was back in a dining room - bright and airy with a minimum of critters. Then our landlady put her house on the market and we moved.

And my writing slump came back.

Sitting on the couch, I thought about why I keep getting these slumps, just when I have scads of time to write. Was it the heat? Was my muse taking summer vacation? When I really thought about it, I realized the one summer I didn't move, I didn't have a slump. I wrote a lot that summer. The only excuse left was the move.

I couldn't seem to get into the groove here. Sitting on the couch with a notebook just didn't inspire me the way it had before - same couch, same notebook, different surroundings. I'm working at the same desk, with relatively the same layout, and my groove is off. The lighting is different. The smells are different. I'm not in my writing place.

My husband has this theory. It has to do with dogs and water dishes. His theory is when it comes to moving around, humans are like dogs. We need to know where our water dish is, and that it's always in the same spot. And when it's not, it throws us off. (If you've ever moved your pet's water dish, you know how confused the poor thing gets - even if for only a minute.)

So, my water got moved and I was feeling a little lost because of it. Aha! Of course, now that I know, it made the whole funk disappear. I got back to writing, and have put out a couple thousand words on my new book - Redemption. All better.

Until we move again. *sigh*

Book Addiction - Meme

Erica Ridley has a wonderful little writerly meme on her blog, and I chose to tackle the questions here this morning.

Here goes nothin':

Total Number of Books I Own

This one has to be a strict estimate for now because it would take me a very very long time to count them all. I know I have roughly 1200 that are in my online bookstore plus another hundred or so that are waiting to be input. We have a huge shelf full of textbooks and educational books for school - that's got to have about a hundred books on it. I have a shelf-full of our keeper fiction - add another hundred. Oh, and this house has built-in glass-fronted bookshelves - tack on another hundred there. How many is that? 1600 give or take a score. Good thing this question wasn't how many books are in the house, because then I'd have to count my daughter's books. Ack.

The Last Book I Bought

I picked up Preston and Child's "The Book of the Dead" for myself just before my daughter went on vacation, but now that I think about it, the last book I bought was for her to read on the plane. I can't remember the title right now, but it was a new release in the urban fantasy genre.

The Last Book I Read

That would have to be "The Titan's Curse" by Rick Riordan. If you haven't had a chance to read this series, what are you waiting for? You're already behind by three books, and the fourth is due out in October. I'm not usually a series reader, but this one sucked me in and now I'm hooked. I mean, come on. Greek gods and heroes in Manhattan?? A summer camp for the Half-Breeds on Long Island?

Five Books That Mean A Lot to Me
(I'm going to take this literally, and go with the books themselves rather than the stories)

1) I have a copy of The Fountainhead by Ayn Rand. I've been a book collector for years, and this book has always had a special place on my shelves because it's a Bobbs-Merrill edition (which for collectors means it's rare), and because I'm a huge fan of Rand. I bought it from a used bookstore while I was in college, and the book also has a special place in my heart because of the memories it inspires. Several years ago, I picked the book up - I don't remember why (I hardly ever fondle my rare books) - and I noticed an inscription I'd never seen before. Inside the front cover was the name of a soldier, his rank, his unit. I did some research, and found out this soldier's unit was a bomber group flying over the Pacific during WWII. Since The Fountainhead (and particularly this edition) was published in 1943, it was easy enough to imagine my soldier flying to protect this country with his copy of The Fountainhead jammed into his pocket. And looking at my book's moisture stains and dog-eared pages, it's even easier to imagine.

2) Years ago when my parents moved out of the house they'd lived in for most of my life, my father had a garage sale. In it, he'd shoved the family's set of 1958 encyclopedias. So, of course, I snatched them up. I have them all sitting in our glassed-in bookshelves right now. I guess with these, it's not so much the books themselves as the memories associated with them. They were my main source for any paper I wrote in school (because we lived out in the country and the library wasn't easy for me to get to). Inside many of the books are crushed flowers, four-leaf clovers and other treasures from my childhood. And then there's the nostalgia of paging through encyclopedias printed before man walked on the moon, before the invention of the PC, before the Vietnam War.

3) And then there's my copy of Atlas Shrugged. When my daughter was small, I joined Book of the Month Club - mainly for the kid's books. But they had an edition of Atlas Shrugged, and since I'd had to sell my only copy when I was in college (it was either read or eat, and I had to eat), I jumped at the chance for a new copy. I inhaled it. Later, I became involved with a man who took any reading I did as a personal affront to him. I wasn't paying attention to him when I read, therefore reading was bad. And he made my life miserable when I tried to read, so I set all my books aside. After I finally wised up and left the guy, the first book I read was this copy of Atlas Shrugged. It was an affirmation of my right to be alive. Ya know?

4) Lastly, there's my copy of Calumet K. It was the first present my husband ever gave me (not counting a dozen yellow roses). The story itself is so simple and yet so powerful, but I wouldn't love this volume half as much if it hadn't been a gift from my one and only. *happy sigh*

ETA: As Erica pointed out, I forgot #5, so I'm just going to tack it on here. I think I choose Harry Potter and the Sorcerer's Stone. If only for the fact that prior to reading that book, my daughter hated reading. No matter how much I prodded her to read, no matter how wonderful I made it sound, she had her heels dug in and refused to read. Then my mother gave her HP#1, and she grudging began reading it. In no time, she was gobbling it up, and now she reads everything. I can't imagine what my life would be like if my kid hated to read. She's my first beta reader for everything now, she's my sounding board for ideas, and she's the first person I can discuss books with. (She's first mostly because we're always together, but that's beside the point.)

Not the most exciting answers to this meme, I'm sure, but it was fun.

If you're interested in volunteering for this meme, have at it, but don't forget to leave a comment here so I can stop by and check your answers out. (And give yourself a little blog traffic while you're at it.)

Lovin My New Toy

I got a new digital camera the other day, but I haven't really had a chance to use it. Today, I took the time for a drive in the country, and came up with some awesome shots. I won't bore you with all of them. (Although I'm pretty proud of the shot I got of a roosting nighthawk.)

So here are a few of the best:

Wonders Never Cease

It's been a good day all around. If you've been following along for a while, you might remember I entered a couple recipes into a contest. Today, while I was looking through my blogroll, I came across the announcement of the winners for this contest.

My recipes took first and third. Yay! The jury's still out as to when I receive my prizes, but hey, at least I won something. Even if it's just bragging rights for now.

First place was Hot Milk Sponge Cake and third was PeanutButterCup Cake w/ Chocolate-PeanutButter Frosting. The first was a gimme, and an old staple in my family. The other was a recipe I created from almost-scratch (meaning I took other recipes and played with them until I had what I wanted). Needless to say, I'm more proud of the brain-child one than the family recipe, but either way, it's good.

Surprise!

Today I'm the guest blogger at Good Girls Kill for the Money!

I love GGKFTM. All the gals there are bright and solid and fun. I haven't hit a post of theirs yet that made me want to cringe. (Which is hard for me to say because there are so few blogs that don't have something like that.) I hope my post lives up to those standards.

My post this morning was about Snipping Unnecessary Scenes. Take a jog on over there and check it out. =o)

Linkage Sunday

Yesterday was spent in a totally vegetative state - reading, watching football, playing poker. But that's okay, I guess, because not many people are around this weekend.

So anyway, here are the posts this week that made me sit up and take notice....

And since my intro is so chock full of unnecessary words, I'd like to point out that Rachel Vincent is tightening her manuscript. It's a short post, but she hits it right where she needs to. I spent a lot of time snipping those words out of Spectacle.

The people over at WriteMinded have been having some special guests on their blog, with interesting and poignant things to say. (They're also having a boatload of contests, so make some comments and get yur name in the hat already.)

At Dishing with the Divas, Brenda Novak talks with writer M.J. Rose.

An Internet Guru and Computer Wiz as well as a writer, Erica Ridley gives some hints and tips about Websites for writers. This gal knows her stuff, so take a jog over there and soak up some internet info.

Courtesy of Diana Peterfreund we have this link to an awesome post by her friend C.L. Wilson on Worldbuilding (and a follow up here). Wilson makes some excellent points, and as Diana points out - we have worldbuilding to do even when we're not working in fantasy.

Speaking of worldbuilding. You may notice a new meter over to the right. (Yep, the purple one.) Since I picked the holiday weekend to ask people's opinions, I didn't get much input, so I'm jumping into Redemption next. Like I said, it's the book with the most work already done to it. It's got a lot of work ahead, but it should be fun. I went back and re-read the 23 pages I already wrote, and fell in love with the story all over again. (Which is why I'm purposely not re-reading the other available choices, or I'll never get anything done.)

How are things in your world this weekend? Anybody out there, or am I the only one who stayed home and vegged out?