While You're Away Your Pets Will Play

Happy Thursday One And All,

I don't always know why or where I get these ideas--maybe it was sleep deprivation; but I'm guessing it's because I like making people laugh:

The other day, I was talking to a friend of mine and this particular friend and the family of this friend have several animals. I started coming up with this whole scenario of what their animals were up to when their backs were turned (or they were gone).

I up and decided the Doberman would conduct a Poker table, along with the Pugs that these people own. I came up with a host of supporting casts and their back stories.

I had my friends laughing (which, of course, was my goal).

So what about you? What do you think your pets are doing when you're not around?

I think we could come up with scenarios that would make good humor books :-)

Have A Thoughtful Thursday!

Invansion Of The Manne-Vamps

Happy Wednesday (St. Patrick's Day) Folks,

Hope y'all are wearing green today!

Well...I am on a parody trend again. I took the idea I had for manne-vamps and approached fellow author (and follower of this blog), Ryan, with the idea of us writing a parody featuring manne-vamps together. Ryan graciously agreed, and since then we've had some brain storming sessions.

In an effort to involve my awesome readers, we decided we'd share our ideas as the story evolves with you.

So here's part 1 of the road to the manne-vamp parody being written:

The story will focus on 2 vampires (one male one female) who had the misfortune to be cursed by a warlock and transformed into mannequins that come alive every Tuesday.

Here are the characters' backgrounds:

Cristoph St. Louis (pronounced the French way, "Lou-ee"): Male vampire. Tall, dark, semi-handsome, and a complete klutz. He looks to be in his thirties, although he's over a hundred years old (exact age unknown). Example of his klutziness: One time (some time after he was transformed into a vampire) he fell INTO the Grand Canyon. Cristoph has a deep voice, could be considered sexy by some, but soft-spoken by others. Reasonably good manners, but really not light on his feet. (I'll have to scratch out more specific details, but for now, this is what I know about him...I'm working on this character).

Josephine Dreyfess ("Joey" to her friends): Female vampire. Orthodox Jew, refuses to bite into anyone who isn't kosher (she has to follow her faith, she's Orthodox, remember?) Has an annoyingly nasal voice. Was transformed into a vampire by Cristoph (an accident, he assures everyone) and has decided he's her soul mate, even though he has other ideas about who might be his soul mate. At 5 foot 3 inches, she's petite but feisty. (for further info on this character, I'll rely on Ryan to clue y'all in more. He's working on her background and personality).

Joshua Steinmeister: Warlock Extraordinaire...except when his spells go wrong. He's Jewish, like Josephine-uh, we mean, Joey, which leads to Cristoph and Joey's troubles in the first place. In retaliation for the insult of being bitten by a rather forward vamp (Joey is the one who bites him), he curses them to live like mannequins in a Mall department store except on Tuesdays when they come to life (and scare the heck outta the shoppers and clerks). (Ryan, if you have anything to add to him, let me know).

There you have it, the cast...now we just have to get the title and story going.

Have A Winsome Wednesday!

The Other Half

Happy Friday Everybody,

Not everyone is married, but a lot of us do have significant others (mine happens to be my husband).

Sometimes these people in our lives (spouses, children, other people otherwise connected to us) don't always understand this world we call being an author.

Occasionally, people don't understand the time, energy, and everything else that goes into writing. Somehow, in the age of technology we have not bypassed writer's block, or editing.

At the same time, technology that would take out writer's block or editing might even take away some of the creative process that also helps hone our ability to establish the worlds in our stories in the first place.

How do we explain that it's our other vocation and sometimes unpredictable or go beyond usual work hours? It's like breathing air. We do it sometimes without thinking.

For instance...you might wander around the mall with the thought, "Okay, now I need to get socks and oh shoot, my jeans are a mess." But then all of a sudden you might also think "What if my heroine sprained her ankle while shopping because she's a complete klutz and didn't watch where she's going?"

Or, perhaps, "What if the mannequin's really a vampire that comes to life every Second Tuesday of every third month of the year?" (The vampire would come out about 4 times in a year).

Seriously, nobody ever knows when an idea will hit (whether outrageous or not) so we keep going. We keep going back to that manuscript that's still in the editing process working out how to make it the absolute best we can. We keep visiting ideas that bounce around in our heads or even things we wrote down to see what might work.

The thing is, we're always on the job one way or another. Whether it's actively writing, editing or if it's reading, attending a book club or a writers' group (or conference). We're always considering what's a great idea, what will help us, what will work and what doesn't.

While other people get to stop thinking about work when their shift is over, some of us are waking up in the middle of the night thinking: "AHA!"


Have A Fabulous Friday!

Who Took My Sleep?

Good morning!

If anybody's seen my sleep, please let me know. I'd like to have it back. I miss it. I promise to treat it well and respect it. I promise to never take it for granted ever again. Somehow or another my body thought it was a great idea to wake up several times last night. (I think it's plotting against me).

In other news I've managed to find the fun in Pierre and Delaney's relationship and so that's going smoother. I was actually happy to start Chapter 8 last night. I pushed through the part I wasn't sure of to get to a part I am sure about. I figure I can go back and rewrite the parts that I don't think are as good to make them better. I'm not afraid of rewriting things that need it--I've been known to delete over 30 pages. I figure rewriting is probably slightly easier because by then I would be more acquainted with the story and know more of where it was going. In any case it was fun having Pierre tease Delaney. He's quite good at it.

I have another parody that I wrote for my friend Les and his friend Bob called The Adventures of Super Les and His Sidekick Bob (What is it about my British friends that makes putting them in a parody so much fun?) I don't know Bob, but he's a friend of Les's and wanted me to write him a parody. I wrestled with the idea before finally deciding to stick Les in there so they could interact...then I thought it would be fun to make them super heroes! In any case, that one made Les laugh harder than Because Of The Pie. So I'm going to have to ask the if they don't mind if I post it up here. I think you all would find it funny, too. I found myself chuckling when I wrote it. More ridiculousness, except worse since the bad guy has an argument with the damsel in distress over the real identity of Super Les and Bob's super-hero gun is broken. Talk about chaos!

I do write serious stuff--as my story figuring Pierre and Delaney and their relationship proves, but sometimes I like to write something funny just to relax and give myself a good laugh. It helps keep the creative juices flowing.

Anyway...

Have a "Wascally" Wednesday! (Elmer Fud anyone? LOL)