Little does he know…
Neil Finn is the soundtrack to my writing life. Almost every major character has a song penned by him–whether as Crowded House or The Finn Brothers or as just himself. I hear the song and I think about the character and the story…I’ve tried other musicians and bands, but nobody else quite captures my writing world.
“Wherever You Are” on One Nil for Fran
“Nails in My Feet” on Together Alone for Paul
“Mood Swinging Man” on Finn for Alvaro
“Walked Her Way Down” on Time on Earth for Mercie
“Not the Girl You Think You Are” on Recurring Dream also for Mercie
…just a few…
—and do you see the sunlight in Neil’s hair? Be still my adjective-loving heart!!!
Cranky and Frustrated–effing cyberspace…
I’m losing my mind. I can’t get to my lake belle blog and though I have waited and posted and posted and waited I’ve yet to hear anything from blogger about solving the problem. You can’t call these people, so I just keep clicking and clicking and getting the same error message about too many redirects.
Hey, there is a plot going on! Things are happening! I realize that the number of people who are concerned is small, but I don’t care if I’m the only person who is interested–I want it fixed. NOW.
I didn’t join cyberspace for error messages. I joined it for HITS and I’m not getting my fix and this is making me CRANKY. Other people have more important things to do, but other than staring at the Neil Finn pictures I took on Friday, this is all I’ve got (well, yes, there’s that family and all, but…I want my blog back!).
I only posting this to waste time as I wait for something to work properly. Sigh. There at least is always Neil Finn–who never lets me down.
update: all is well! all is well! No thanks to anyone at Blogger as far as I can tell, but to a fellow blogspot blogger–which I guess is what the internet is partially about.
Where’s the damn cat?
The lack of pictures for Lake Belle is a problem. One coworker suggested I take images from google, but that wouldn’t work even if I were inclined to do it. Sure, in a novel people don’t expect pictures, but lake belle isn’t a book-it’s a blog. And on blog people post pictures and join my space or face book or whatever…
And I can’t draw well enough to illustrate it. So…any artists out there want an unpaid gig? Thought not.
A few weeks ago I saw this young woman shopping and I thought–Mercie! A bolder person might have asked to take her picture, but what should I have said? “Hey, want to be a fictional character?” Hell, I can’t even find anybody to let me use their cat. Mercie is supposed to have a cat! Where’s the damn cat?
Writers Are Mean People
I was being good and grading papers (granted, I was drinking red wine and watching WKRP at the same time) when I was overwhelmed with an urge to move Mercie’s story along. Now I feel both thrilled and guilt-ridden. Writers must be a mean lot. Just think of all the terrible things we inflict on people we create. Good heavens. What would we do if we couldn’t write?
Oh, sigh, my poor characters–they have no idea…
Fictional lives crash and burn…
Mercie is headed for disaster because, as a friend pointed out, she wouldn’t make a very good book if you could warn her off her present course. The question is–how far is she going to go before she learns the truth? The longer she goes, the bigger the burn, of course, but I don’t really want to ruin her life. I just want to keep it interesting.
Some writers go for bleak endings, some for happy, some for vague, some for neat, some for room-for-the-sequel. This is not a new observation, obviously. But how much is a writer’s outlook on life in the ending? How much can you tell about a writer by the way they tell and end a story? Which endings are true and which are pretense? And why do stories with tragic endings stay in our thoughts, while so many happy endings fade from memory? Who’d remember Hamlet if they all went into therapy and reconciled? Or Romeo and Juliet if they got married and lived happily ever after next door to Cinderella and Mr. Cinderella? (Did that prince ever have a name? Don’t tell me he was just a symbol.)
moment of insanity in tech hell
So, I bought my domain name because I suffer from the delusion that one day I might be a professional, published author and I don’t know if I did something wrong or not but my blog seems to have disappeared.
God, I wish I had taken more tech courses! Anyway, it is possible that the strange and unpleasant page that springs up when you type in lakebelle.blogspot.com will GO AWAY in a couple of days once the link or connection (or whatever the hell it is) is made, but I wasn’t told. If my blog is just plain gone, I will cry. I will crawl under my covers and CRY. Or, in a short time, my new name will kick in and if some poor soul or truly loyal friend wants to see the blog they’ll get to type www.mylakebelle.com, which won’t actually take anybody here, but to the blogspot site. Does this make any sense? Not to me, it doesn’t.
And the name here may have to change…I’m so confused!
Maybe I should just go to bed.
Oh, Madeleine, La Madeleine
The one Christmas my mother and I lived together she gave me a hardcover set of A Wrinkle in Time, A Swiftly Tilting Planet, and A Wind in the Door. I loved those books and twenty-four years later I still have them–stained pages and torn jacekts. Just a note in memory of a writer who inspired.
Too Much Plot?
I’m editing NaNo novel 2006, and I’m on page 65 (single-spaced, mind) and I’m thinking–wow, that’s a lot of plot. There are a few magical transformations, an explosion, a death, and a very unfortunate first kiss. Or looked at another way, my main character discovers she can channel some starnge magic energy for good and for bad, she runs away from home, her father dies, she suspects her mother is a murderer, and she meets a waiter in an alley (not the most romantic of first kiss locations–oh, and he’s a creep). But when is it interesting? When does it become a I-can’t-put-this-down?
Pile it on and whittle it down? Am I mixing metaphors? Oh well. There are almost 200 more pages to go–imagine what’s next!
Is it cleanliness that is next to godliness? Are we sure about that?
Who is to say that having a clean house isn’t a higher calling than writing a novel? Maybe all this time I’ve been feeling superior to housecleaning-tip-exchanging moms for no good reason. Sure, I’ve got all these words blackening pages of bleached stained printer paper, but half the bills get paid late simply because I can’t find them on my desk and I have yet to invite my neighbor inside because I can’t really see the importance of getting the clean clothes out of the laundry basket and into the closet.
If I cleaned house maybe I’d have more friends and better credit (What? I don’t remember getting that bill!) Hey, it’s not like I don’t love The Container Store. And yes, now that I’m safely married I don’t fall for inane lines like I used to, unless they’re on the cover of Real Simple convincing me that this time, oh this time, it will all work out. Take me home, take me home…you know you want to…and your life will be the better for it…
But of course like the man who isn’t who you think, Real Simple isn’t a cure. Sure it has its moments but mostly it just covers up another bill.
Oh, all right, maybe the comparison doesn’t work, but I don’t care. I’ve got a manuscript in a worse mess than my apartment (realistically, how many times can a teenage girl run away from home?), and while I’ve heard cleanliness is next to godliness–what is writing next to? Anyone heard?
But hey, if cleanliness is next to godliness does that mean it will give me powers to be everywhere and know everything and answer prayers and smite my enemies (dust bunnies need to be taught a real lesson in smiting). Doesn’t sound too different from being a novelist, actually. And it’s a lot more fun to smite an ex-boyfriend in a novel than to bring judgment day to the heathen dust bunnies.
You know, when I start comparing writing to housework, it is time to drink vodka in my closet.
Instant Gratification
I used to wonder how some of my friends could spend so much time blogging and zipping around the internet. Now I know. At least for me this medium provides feedback in a way that sitting away writing alone in my closet does not. Anytime I get a reader who is not one of my friends, I feel slightly startled and not a little thrilled. I get more thrilled than reason warrants.
But a response is so wonderfully instant! I can’t help but wonder if this isn’t the meth of the writing world. All it takes is one hit…
So, please, satisfy me one more time and click…lakebelle…
