Miranda Phipps

I’ve loved Betina Krahn’s books forever, and this book is no exception. As an aspiring writer, her rounded characters and satisfying plot within the combines of the Blaze format especially impressed me. (I made lots of notes along the way on my Kindle–so many examples of great writing.)

Here’s one of my favorites:

“It was all he could do to do nothing at all.”

Simple and perfect. OK, back to aspiring to the same in my own WIP.

P.S. Posted this from my iPad (dubbed My Precious). And no, you can’t touch it.

P.P.S. Haven’t quite figured out how to insert a picture yet. I’ll keep working on it.

“Now I know why women wear such large panniers,” she said.

“To repel their admirers?”

“Precisely . . . .”

Came home  last night from RWA with a remarkable clarity of mind around the direction I want to go this year.  I definitely experienced my usual round of conference angst and the wish that this past year had been more productive, but Nationals also always allows my to see my priorities more clearly.  Every year I experience a muddying and obscuring of my goals over time.  The conference–this year especially–allows all that silt to precipitate away to the bottom, and I can once again see where I want to go.

The takeaway?  One cannot raise two small people, work a day job that demands all of one’s mental energy and write a book.  Perhaps if my day-job were less mentally encroaching, my routine of getting up in the wee hours would be do-able, but that is not my reality.  I must credit this realization in no small part to a conversation I had with Joanna Bourne at the booksigning.  (Thank you, Joanna, and congratulation on the very well-deserved RITA!)  It’s such an obvious truth that all of my best mental energy is poured into professional demands and not the writing.  Now I see it. 

I wish I could say the same for our poor betta fish, Miss Flitter Silver-Mist Phipps, whose tank is a nasty murk.  Cleaning the fishtank was NOT a priority for the DH during my absence, so  I’m to share some of my clear-sightedness with dear Flitter.

I just bought my plane ticket last night, and I’m trying out a bit of a new format on the timing front.  I’m going to come in on Tuesday and then leave on Saturday before the RITAs.  So, I have four nights, but I’m sort of buying myself an extra full day during the week.  I particularly wanted to join the Beau Monde’s field trip on Wednesday:

http://www.thebeaumonde.com/conference/

I’m also going to be attending the book signing and playing gofer for the authors signing.  I’m also going to shepherd folks into meetings with editors on Thursday and Friday afternoon.  While there are a few workshops I’m interested in attending, I’m hoping to turn this year’s RWA into more of a social/networking event.

Crazy week–sick kid, kid with oral surgery, work life that seems to have forgotten about the global recession.  Bad news i that this was a low workout and writing week.  : (

My reward has been to read the last installment in the Gardella series.   Mmmm . . . Max.

I also had a bit of a sad discovery which is that the lyrics to my favorite Vampire Weekend song are not at all what I thought they were.  Here are the real lyrics to Campus:

I pull my shirt on, walk out the door
Drag my feet along the floor

Then I see you, you’re walking ‘cross the campus
Cruel professor studying romances

How am I supposed to pretend
I never want to see you again?
How am I supposed to pretend
I never want to see you again?

Walked to class, in front of ya
Spilled kefir on your keffiyeh
You look inside and turn to the door
Drag your feet along the floor

Then I see you, you’re walking ‘cross the campus
Cruel professor studying romances

How am I supposed to pretend
I never want to see you again?
How am I supposed to pretend
I never want to see you again?

In the afternoon, you’re out on the stone and grass
And I’m sleeping on the balcony after class
In the afternoon, you’re out on the stone and grass
And I’m sleeping on the balcony after class
In the afternoon, you’re out on the stone and grass
And I’m sleeping on the balcony after class

So instead of the “Cruel professor” line, I thought it was bulletproof vest.  That’s exactly the kind of weird stuff one imposes on lyrics, but I love the idea of his ex wearing an emotional bulletproof vest while she’s reading romance novels.

Hubby ordered a great new album that came today.  It’s a San Francisco band, Rupa and the April Fishes. 

The lyrics are fantastic, and we’re especially loving this song, Wishful Thinking.  You can listen to it here (fourth song in the playlist), and I’ve transcribed the lyrics below.

wishful thinking

i used to dream of a pirate ship

that would take me away from here

out to the open sea into the biggest blue

complete with a cast of unsavory crew

who’d show me things that i shouldn’t do

the masts were tall and impressive

the old wood creaked perfectly too

and the full sails held promises of something true

and when we’d get bored of the watery view

we’d simply set our course for the moon

to my surprise as i’ve grown older

living these days like dreams with you

i’ve discovered the ship waits inside my chest

and the winds fills its sails on the days i like best

but where it takes me, it takes me alone

to do this strange work i barely know

now i don’t know when the tides will call me

away from this sweet life with you

and i wish that i could stay forever

even though since i was young i knew there was never

such a thing but this wishful thinking

keeps our stories rising as our lives are sinking

in time i will kiss you goodbye

on my way and kiss you goodbye

don’t want to go

and i’ll kiss you goodbye

I believe there are Spike girls and Angel girls (just in the same way there are Bronte girls and Austen girls–hat tip to Lucia Macro for the distinction).  I would be shocked to learn if there are any Riley girls.

I fall decidedly within the Spike camp.

Favorite line?  This is a hard one because Spike is so quick with a good comeback, not to mention that he plays the role of a truthsayer throughout the series.  He sees straight into everyone’s motives.  (As an aside, I love that Spike’s vampire self is a foil to his former human self, the maudlin poet who’s unlucky with the ladies but loves his mother enough to turn her into a vampire.)

In the end, I’ll have to go with a line from Dead Things in Season 6, one of my all time favorite episodes.

“You always hurt the ones you love, pet.” 

Spike says this after Buffy’s beaten his face to a pulp and assured him he’s an unclean, soulless thing.  And despite this, he still sees she loves him.  He even calls her “pet,” reminding her that, no matter the violence of her actions and her words, he loves her too.

I’m still suffering from PTSD after Spike’s total character violation in As You Were, a later episode in Season 6.  If you’ve watched, you know.

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This website has been in the works for the past two years.  At last, I’ve had a week to sit down and really focus on it.  It’s amazing what one can get done with time and the ability to Google ever single moronic Wordpress question that came up along the way.  And, yes, there were many.

I wanted in on those free Harlequin eBooks, so I downloaded Stanza onto my iPhone and converted myself into an eBook dovotee. I read three books in two days. My reading time is FAST on the iPhone, I tell you.

I missed turning in my chapter last week, but I am aspiring to turn in two this week, so I can stay caught up. It feels good to be making progress and giving myself permission to write a bad first draft. My inner perfectionist remains relatively subdued. It’s amazing that despite being handcuffed, gagged and stuffed into the corner of my mental closet she still manages to show up at breakfast every once in a while. I ignore her and apply myself to my Greek yogurt with granola.

I’m excited about my new online writing class for using historical detail in novels–should be fun!

I’m in a patient mode. It took me a year and a half to change some habits around exercise to the point where I finally feel like I’ve integrated exercise into my lifestyle without having to fight it all the time. Writing is up next (and I’m hoping to tackle that in tandem with eating better).

So far, so good on reforming those habits. My crit partner and I have come up with a new world order where we are required to deliver work to each other on a weekly basis. I’m not necessarily writing every day, or even for very long on the days when I do write, but there is progress being made. And progress is . . . progress.