Author: Jonathon

I’m getting a lot of feedback on Twitter, Face Book, and My Space about how much you are enjoying the deeper peek into how I write my books, but in reading some of the responses I realized there’s a problem. A lot of you are beginning writers or at least people with many fewer books under their belt than me. So I thought I’d be clear that this Merry book DIVINE MISDEMEANORS is writing very differently for me than any previous book, even previous Merry books, so the process is different and may not be conducive to your process.

Allow me to explain. When I was a beginning writer and had never finished a book, or even sold a short story I sat down to break that first book barrier. I hoped to sell it, but the first hurdle is writing the damned thing. It feels like such a mammoth task to fill that many pages with words you create out of thin air. It was intimidating the first time I tried it, and it’s still a little daunting some 27 books later, 28 if you count my short story collection. My writing process has changed over the years, so I thought I’d share the process that allowed me to finish that first novel.

First, I was working full time in cooperate America. I was an art editor, of all things, for a large corperation. Not my favorite job I’ve ever held, most artists find the cubicle farm hard on them and I was no exception. But it was a good job straight out of college, amazingly good, and for a woman with a biology/ English degree it was excellent. So I was happy to have it, but I knew it wasn’t what I wanted to do forever. I wanted to make a living as a writer. That meant books. Short stories, even if I sold one someday, would never be enough to live on.

Now, I’m not going into how to get that first book length idea, because I honestly can’t tell you where the idea came from. If I ever knew I no longer remember, but I can tell you the first scene came into my head in college during a lit or writing class. Not from anything the class was teaching me, but just one of those random thoughts, images. Books often come to me like that first. The interesting thing is that the first image that makes me want to find out what’s happening and how they got to this point seldom makes it into the book. This was true of NIGHTSEER my first novel and is still true of most of my books. Not all, but the majority. The first image is inspiration not really part of the book. It’s the tease that gets me intrigued and makes me willing to do the work to see how it all turns out.

But how to write a novel and work full time? I got up at 5 AM every day before work, and I am not a morning person, at all, but I found that at the end of the day my job had drained me so that I had nothing left to put on paper. Getting up at 5 stumbling to the computer and doing 2 pgs. Just 2 pgs a day, at least five days a week. I usually worked part of one weekend, too, but the five days a week were the most important. For me I need the momentum of regular pages to keep the book alive in my head.

So, pick a time you can devote to the book uninterrupted, then 2 pgs a day for at least five days a week. Here’s the real trick you do your 2 pgs, but you don’t revise as you go. Why not? Because I, like most writers, am a prefectionist. If I start rewriting too early in my writing process I become overly critical and the piece never gets finished. No rewrites during first draft. None.

Also, no going on line to research something, or to the library to research something during the first draft. I’m going to assume you did some preliminary research before you started the book, or that it’s something so interesting to you that you’ve read simular books, or have a hobby that helps you understand the basics of what you’re doing. But if you go on-line the internet will eat your writing time. It will, you know it will, so don’t do it. Libraries are dangerous places for writers because we love to read. You can always find one more book, one more piece of perfect research to help that certain scene. It’s a way to procrastinate, don’t do it.

First draft is 2 pgs a day, at least five days a week, no revision. Because the biggest hurdle for most first time novelists is the thought that they can fill that many pages with a story. 2 pages a day and at the end of the year you have a respectable pile of pages beside the computer. It looks like a book. It gives you confidence that you can indeed do this crazy thing.

Now if you come to a scene and you honestly don’t know something important, this is what I still do to this day. I hit cap lock write NOTES; AND TYPE MY QUESTION. LIKE WHAT DOES 14TH CENTAURY WOMEN’S UNDERWEAR LOOK LIKE. DID THEY EVEN HAVE ANY? Then you skip it. You move on. You’re getting your main character undressed to go to bed, just undress her and have her sleep, don’t go near the internet or the library to find out about the underwear unless you are much more disciplined than I am. If so, good luck, but for the rest of us mere humans, don’t go. That fight scene, intimidated, skip it. You know who wins. It has to be your hero, she can’t die here, so skip the whole fight scene, figure out if she was wounded, or who she killed, put the cap note on and keep moving.

Second draft is just doing a global search for NOTES; and now you can look on the internet, though be careful because some sites do not require a post to be researched at all. Just because it’s in print on the internet doesn’t make it true. I still use the old journalist idea of three sources if possible. So now find out what 14th centaury women’s underwear looks like. Now go back and flesh out that fight scene. This is the draft where you fill in the holes. Street names, banquet foods, whatever. You’re filling in.

Third draft is where you begin to polish the writing. Now you’re ready for the 70/30 rule. What is that, you ask? It means that of any first draft, and because you haven’t revised your writing yet, not really, third draft is actually still first draft for writing. 70% of any first draft is garabage. 30% of that draft is pure gold. Trouble is you have to write the whole 100 % percent to get that 30 of gold, because the garbage and the gold are all intermingled with each other. You have to write the whole book to find the good stuff, but now you begin to winnow it down. You begin to rewrite, to cut, to revise. You fix that 70% of garbage and you try to make it match those magical moments of that 30% of gold.

I did seven drafts of my book before I sent it off to an literary agent. Seven drafts is more than I’ve ever done on any other book, but it was my first and I was learning as I went. The above is how I wrote GUILTY PLEASURES, KISS OF TWILIGHT, and most of the first ten books of my career, counting a STAR TREK and a TSR book. As I went along the garbage quotient went down. My first drafts are closer to 70% gold and 30% garbage now. Some shining books are 90% gold and only 10 % garabage. But every book has still been written as above, though I do research as I go now sometimes if it’s something that will seriously effect the plot. Police work is like that, get it wrong and you are screwed and have to do massive rewrites later as I did with SKIN TRADE. So sometimes a little research saves you, but I am a much more certain hand at the wheel of a novel now. I know I can do it because I’ve done it 28 times before. There’s confidence that comes with that.

DIVINE MISDEMEANORS the current book that I am blogging and tweeting about is writing differently from any book I’ve ever written. I am walking away letting it stew, because forcing it in my usual bull-in-the-China-shop way wasn’t working. It’s fun to share my writing process with you, and if you find it helpful, great, but I just wanted to be very clear that this book is not how I wrote most of my novels. I wanted to share with you the above rules that got me through my early ones, and have helped I believe four other writers to complete their novels. Two have sold. So it works for people other than me, and if I had tried to write my first novel the way I’m writing DIVINE MISDEMEANORS it would never been have been finished, because I would have lost confidence in it with this stop and start approach. So, here is how I started out, and you’re getting peeks into how I’m doing it now. You change and grow as a writer as well as a person, it’s just the way of things.

I hope this was helpful, and you now how have two very different ways to write a book. Good luck. 

Started to try and Twitter this, but realized it was way too long for that. So, you guys get a second blog today.

I ended last post with a cry for inspiration. Jon came back from dropping Trinity off at her father’s. Jon had gotten breakfast while he was out, and handed me mine while I sat at my desk staring at the blog. He kissed me and left me to it. I sat in my big leather chair that’s in one corner of my office and ate breakfast. I was finally letting myself relax and listen to Drain STH, and singing along, when a huge hawk launched from the trees outside my windows. I was on my feet and striding across the office tracking the flight. She dipped too low, I lost sight of her, then she landed on a telephone pole at the edge of the yard. A blue jay had found her and was already alerting the other birds who began to join the mob, but she just sat there grooming unconcernedly. Then one huge white feather came away from her tail and floated down like some gigantic snowflake riding the breeze. It seemed very important that I get outside and see it. I don’t argue with that voice in my head anymore. It’s the same voice that warns you about danger, but if you listen long enough and well enough the voice will also tell you about wonderful things, joyous things, special things. I had to see the hawk closer.

Breakfast was still in my hand forgotten as I went over to the other part of the house to see if I could get a better view of the hawk. I told Jon what I was doing, and it’s enough at our house to say, "Hawk," people grab the cameras and their sunglasses and head out of doors.

Jon got some more hawk pictures, we’ll post them later. It was wonderful to see her sitting up there so big and so bold and so real. Then she took off and we went back inside. I finished breakfast and sat down at the computer but there was a flock of finches that kept fluttering outside my window and I finally grabbed the camera in my office and went to see what the excitement was all about. I actually missed the picture of them descending on some of the flowers beside the stream, couldn’t get the tripod down fast enough, but I got the goldfinch and then I got the hummingbird. They stayed for a long time letting me snap the pictures. I finally took myself away from the window reluctantly back to work, but I felt refreshed, renewed, just better. It was like I could get a deep, clean breath again, and some dark weight had been lifted on the flap and flutter of wings both large and small. It’s a beautiful day here, and I’m over my minimum page count. It’s 10:30 AM and I’m done for the day unless the muse and I want to play later, but I’m done with the forced play. I’m done for the day on a kid-free weekend with my husband and no other plans we have to do. Wow.

I asked for inspiration and it came winging past my window in the shape of a red-tailed hawk. I believe the very same hawk that came and hunted voles outside my windows a week or so ago. Blessed be.

It’s 7:20 AM here and I’m at my desk. Why so early on a Saturday? Our daughter, Trinity, had an event with her father so Jon and I got up early to make certain she made it on time, even if the hour is horribly early. We got about five hours of sleep, I think. We had a birthday party for a good friend’s daughter, and the daughter, too, is a friend. We’ve known them since before she could talk in more than baby gibberish, the daughter not the friend. It was her sweet sixteen and yes she is taller than I am, and quite pleased with it she is. Having met her father I knew genetics was on her side for the height, but she’s still unduly pleased about inching me out this year.

The party was good. It was fun meeting people from many different parts of her life and mixing them all together in one party. It was even a surprise party so we had to do that thing where this huge group of people have to be utterly quiet every time the phone rang just in case it was her. Trinity had a great time so it was totally worth it knowing we’d have to be up earlier than for a weekday so she could make the stuff with her father. It didn’t feel so totally worth it when the alarm went off this morning.

I’m fine getting up early on weekends if the muse drags me out of bed with the book running wild in my head, so that the words seem to drip from my finger tips and are barely contained long enough for me to get to my computer. That’s a great reason to wake early. This morning was not one of those days. Jon and I both woke feeling liked we’d been hit with a padded hammer in various body parts. He complained of head, mine was gut. (No we did not drink.) We’re just rather delicate in the area of constitution. My theory is that most artists are and that’s why we turn to drugs and alcohol so often, to give us a reason to feel this bad. At least if we’d had a bender the night before we might be able to convince ourselves that we had a good time and this was all worth it. The cold reality is that it’s lack of sleep, lack of food and maybe just the work schedule. I sat beside, walked beside, stood beside, more food I couldn’t eat last night than ever. Damn it, I wanted chips and dip and cheesy fried things. But this morning I hadn’t ruined any of that hard work in the gym, so it was worth it. Jon and I did share a piece of cake last night. It was yummy. We traded all the chips and such for eating the cake. It’s all about discipline and compromise. The veggie and fruit tray was our friend. (That friend that is always good and virtuous and never seems to get into any trouble. The one you hate just a little, because they’re always so smug about it. Smug and perfect. It gives you that perverse urge to cover them in whipped cream, throw a few sex toys around them and snap pictures of them going, "Nooo!" Or maybe that’s just my perverse urge. I actually don’t have any friends like that anymore. My friends that are that good are genuinely that good and there’s no smugness about it they work hard at it, and I see their struggles to maintain the balance. I even help when I can. I am only the voice of temptation when invited.)

So I sit here at my desk, huddling around the second cup of tea of the day, feeling a little fragile. It feels like I’ve been on tour and any of you that have done that will understand just how bad I feel. My muse not only isn’t eager to get to work, but I think she’s huddling over her caffeinated beverage of choice giving me a dirty look. "How can I inspire you on so little sleep?" To that, I have no answer. I sympathize with her, my muse. We huddle over th keyboard and hurt, and try to remember why we’re here, and what we’re supposed to be thinking about. There’s this book. That’s right. A book, Merry book, but right this second I can’t remember where I left off.

Oh, God, I just checked. It’s a sex scene. I cannot possibly write a good sex scene right now. It’s too early. Last night was too late. I’m hungry and nauseous; I hate that combination. Fight scene maybe. Crime scene, rock on. Sex scene, not so much.

Drain STH on the player. It’s music that can make me think about sex, or obsession, or even broken hearts. This morning it’s jut noise. Have to run away and try to find something to inspire me.

I dreamed about zombies last night. I have never in my life dreamed about them. Is it weird that I write about zombies, vampires, and wereanimals, but I have never, ever dreamed about them? But last night it wasn’t as scary a dream as it could have been because I became aware in the dream enough to think, "Gee, I’ve never dreamed about zombies before." The thought was enough to break the dream and leave me blinking into the morning light.

It’s not because I haven’t written about zombies in awhile because there are a lot of zombies in the novella that I finished recently. But for the first time I dreamed about the shambling dead, and I wasn’t scared. It seemed vaguely familiar like a busman’s vacation. Maybe that’s why I don’t dream about monsters because when nightmares are being sent out they want you scared, and monsters just don’t scare me; they never have.

Do you know the joke about the elephant? How do you eat an elephant? Answer; one bite at a time.

Earlier today I was feeling as if I were standing in the middle of an entire herd of elephants in danger of being trampled to death under the press of deadlines, demands from every direction for my time, attention, emotion, so I meditated. And one of the clear messages I got was, "You can only fight one battle at a time." You can’t fight tomorrow’s battle today. You can’t have that 3 o’clock meeting if it’s only noon, so fight the battle that’s on your plate at noon, and fight the meeting when the time for it rolls around. You prepare your weapons, cover your ass with paperwork, but in the end you can’t do anything until the battle happens. Worrying about it doesn’t help. That just leads to frantic wheel-spinning like a squirrel chasing it’s tail because it can’t find where it hid it’s cache of nuts. Chasing it’s tail doesn’t get the squirrel one step closer to finding it’s food, and it uses up energy that without the food it won’t have for long, so not only useless but actually counter productive. Panic never helps.

I was chasing my tail this morning. I’ve been chasing my tail since last night. I’ve meditated and I feel better, but I’m hitting the gym now and seeing if I can sweat the rest of this indecision out of me. Not indecision, but too many decisions all hitting at once. I have to push the pile away and take just one thing from it, finish it, then and only then, pick up another. I’ve been trying to pick up handfuls of tasks and then panicking because I can’t hold them all in my arms. That stops and I take a deep breath, let it out slow, and I pick up one stone from the pile, turn it over, see what task I’ve got in hand and work on it. The other stones with their tasks carved into their sides will wait until later. They aren’t going anywhere unless I move them around. Remember in reality you have the power, because the work doesn’t get done without you. It needs you more than you need it. (All right as a writer I need to write the way I need sex, or air to breathe, but I still like the metaphor.)

You can only fight one battle at a time. You can only write one book at a time. You can only write one essay at a time. You can only talk to one editor on the phone at a time. You can only work on one new idea at a time. You can only edit one manuscript at a time.

I’m going to get me a giant size cattle prod and start working through my herd of elephants; one bite at a time.

I don’t get writer’s block, it’s a failure of confidence and that’s not my gig, but I do have moments when the words don’t come, when the negative thoughts crowd in so thick that my muse gets pushed out. It’s the closest I get to the dreaded block. I Tweeted about it, but I get so many writers asking me how to avoid the block, that I thought I’d share what I do to push past it.

This morning it was nearly noon and I had no pages, and no desire to write any. I was really stuck.

I finally gave in and wrote in my meditation journal about the dreams I had last night, then I meditated for insight and guidiance. Still stuck. I went over to the other side of the house and got a yogurt. If I don’t have enough fuel in my body the brain starts getting fuzzy. Yogurt helped, but didn’t unstick me. Carri and I had a cup of green tea and conversation. That helped, because somewhere in there I realized that I had gone to bed thinking negative thoughts, it had haunted my dreams all night, and stayed with me to ride to work this morning. Once I realized that it was my own thoughts and emotions getting in the way of the writing I could begin to work through it. (And let’s face it, that’s usually what’s getting in the way.)

I’ll give you two phrases that I use on days like this. Phrase 1: "It is not what happens but your attitude towards what happens that determines how you feel."

We all know people who are unflaggingly optimistic in the face of bad things, and people who are unflaggingly pessimistic in the face similar things. The only change is the attitude of the person involved, the events don’t change at all, just the attitude, and that you can control.

Phrase 2: "Let go of the day you had planned and enjoy the day you’ve been given." This phrase works with different problems like, "Let go of the relationship you had planned and enjoy the relationship you’ve been given." "Let go of the job you had planned and enjoy the job you’ve been given." See, it works with almost anything.

Let go of trying to control everything and truly embrace the gifts you’ve actually been given, to do anything else is like being a kid on Christmas morning and you’ve got a lot of really cool toys, but you didn’t get the one Captain Atom Smash-Up Space Ship, and because you didn’t get this one toy you don’t want to play with any of your other cool stuff. You just sit and sulk about not getting the Captain Atom Smash-Up Space Ship, while totally ignoring the Captain Atom Space Station.

It’s the old attitude that if I can’t have exactly what I want, I don’t want anything. I have a tendency towards this so I speak from experience when I say, let it go, because to do anything else just makes you miserable and it doesn’t get you any closer to what you really want, it just stops you from enjoying your other wonderful presents.

I find that most "writer’s block" is actually anxiety or fear. Fear that you’ll never live up to expectations, or you’ll never be able to finish the book, or that nothing you will write down is interesting enough so everyone will hate it, so why bother. You feel anxious get up and brush your teeth, or comb your hair, put on makeup, wash the dishes, anything that is fairly automatic and doesn’t require a lot of thinking, and it must be a quick task. Do it, then notice how much calmer you feel. First, it’s something you know you can actually do, second it’s visible and solid. You brush your teeth, you taste that minty freshness. It’s not like writing where you aren’t sure how to start a scene, or if you’ve gotten distracted, those are too intangible, brushing your teeth is about as concerte and mundane as it gets. But whatever task you choose I find that it short circuits the panic and I can often go back to work and I am unblocked.

Someday’s just making hot tea is enough to break the cycle of anxiety. Meditation or prayer on a regular basis helps keep most stress lower, and for me exercise on a regular basis really helps me manage my stress. If I’m eating properly, getting enough sleep, exercising, meditating regularly, all this seems to help me avoid mornings like today. Also a few select friends that just seem to help refresh you and help you laugh are wonderful preventatives of black moods of all kinds. I’m blessed with several people in my life that seem to feed my soul and my muse. I’m lucky enough to be married to one of them. So, I meditated, had green tea, talked with Carri, had my aha moment and when I sat down back down to just get a few sentences started so I wouldn’t come back to a blank start of the new chapter this afternoon lo and behold I had 5 good pages in about an hour. I was unblocked. Yay!

May your own writing be muse-driven, and brilliant. 

I’ve run into several women lately, and a few articles, that make me feel like sharing some of my dating strategy. What are my credentials for this advice? I’ve been married twice. First time lasted for over a decade and I have a lovely daughter from that marriage. My second marriage is eight years legal, nine years as a couple, and every year just gets better.  Did I mention that Jonathon is 12 years younger than I am? I add that because it seems to impress other women. I simply found that I had trouble dating men in my own age group, because they had trouble with my independence, my honesty, and that my job was as important to me as theirs, some even complained that I might make more money than they do. I found that younger men were less likely to have these hang ups. 

1. If you get the idea that a man feels like buying you drinks, or dinner, entitles him to sex, and you don’t think it does, be up front about it. When I was freshly divorced and not with my lovely husband I ran into this attitude. I started paying for my own stuff, and with one particularly pushy guy, I said, out loud these words, "You seem to think that the price of dinner is the price of my virtue. It’s not." He didn’t understand the comment.

He lost points for pushiness, not being quick enough verbally to understand the comment, and completely off the dating table because when I explained in more detail that he wasn’t getting sex from me at the end of one date he didn’t want the date. Guess what, I didn’t want the date either, at least we agreed on something.

Women, if you feel pressured to put out when you don’t want to just because a guy spent money on the date, then pay for some of the date. But always remember don’t have sex if you don’t want to have sex. Period.

Now, those women out there who are horrified at the idea of them paying for anything and are still living in the dark ages when women had no money, no power, and were basically chattel. Cut that shit out. You make the rest of us look bad.

1a) A brief word about what we are hearing from some of the young men. They, too, are feeling pressured to have sex when they don’t always want to, and feel that the girl expects them to want sex and if they don’t then their masculinity is questioned. The same rule applies to you guys, as to you girls, if you do not want to have sex then don’t!

2. I hear that women are afraid to be rude when a guy comes up to them to hit on them. Do not tell them they are too nice for you to date them. This is a lie and it perpetuates the stereotype that we don’t like nice men. I love nice men, I’ve never been attracted to the bad boy. I’m about to be terribly sexist, but in reverse. That old saying that you want your wife to be a nice girl everywhere, but a bad girl in the bedroom, well I feel that way about men. If a guy is not nice I don’t give a shit how he is in the bedroom. (Let me add that just because you’re dressed all in black and have a penchant for leather doesn’t make you a bad boy, it just means you look good in leather, and that’s never a bad thing.) My idea of nice guys and most people’s idea of nice guys means I don’t look much at the wrapping paper. In fact, I’ve had more bad experiences with men who liked suits and ties, and normal guy stuff, then the Goths, or any other fringe group.

So how do you turn a guy down? My rule used to be that if they got up the courage to ask me out, I’d do one date, unless I got the creepy vibe off of them. Creepy vibe men are to be avoided at all costs, listen to your lizard brain it could save you from date rape or worse. Now, if there is no mutual attraction at all, don’t tell them that; it would be like a guy saying he didn’t find you sexy at all, it would hurt. It’s not about hurting the guy, just being honest. I used these words, "I’m sorry, but no." Or, "Thank you that’s very flattering, but no thank you." You don’t need to make up excuses, you don’t need to pretend you have a boyfriend, you don’t need to do anything but say that little phrase. Be nice while you do it, but that’s it, you are done.

I’m told that some men actually get angry when they get turned down. I don’t think I’ve ever been asked out by a man that insecure. Apparently, I just don’t attract that type of guy so I can’t speak to it.

Let me add, women if you like a guy, ask him out. I’ve always done that. Ask them out, they say no, then you know they don’t like you as a date, so you can stop worrying about it and move on. If I asked them out, I paid, unless the guy was very insistent about, then I’d try for Dutch, and when all else failed let him pay, but I always felt weird about it. I like the rule that whoever does the asking out, pays. But that’s just me.

There was a herpetology show today. Pili, Carri’s wife, and I went. Carri told her not to buy anything for them, but only for work. I went along to make certain of that, and to tote and fetch the things she did need to buy. I was also there to help with the picking out. Pili knows as much or more about keeping herps in captivity, but my biology degree has to be good for something so off we went.

What we saw at the herp show: Lizards such as Bearded dragons, Tegues, monitors, geckos (lot’s of geckos), anoles, and chamelions. There were a few other species, but those were the ones that I remember most. Snakes: milk snakes, king snakes, corn snakes (all three species come in a vertible rainbow of colors), ball pythons, red-tail boas, lots of different pythons and boas. There were a few, very few, rat snakes but no Russian or Amur Rat Snakes which is my favorite kind. There were even some juvenal Emerald Tree Boas which I’d never seen outside of books or the zoo before. Frogs from Poison Dart to Pacman. There was even a big lutristic (yellow) bull frog. There were tarantulas from Mexican red-knee to Chilean Rose. My two favorites were the Skeleton tarantula which if I was just shopping for appearance would be my bet, but apparently they’re pretty aggressive. I don’t really want a spider that large that even the breeder says is aggressive. But for sheer impressiveness it’s got to be the Goliath Bird Eater which were the size of dinner plates.  I spread my hand above it in it’s little plastic container and most of them were the size of my hand with the legs not extended. Man, that’s a big spider. There were turtles from red-toed tortoises, Chinese box, to snapping turtles, and cooters of several kinds. There were even some of the soft shell turtles which Pili said she saw them eating when she was in China. I’ve seen people eat turtles here, too, just not the soft shells. No, I have never tasted turtle. I like turtles and I’d rather have the turtle alive than in the stew pot. I do eat wild game though, just never turtles. They even had those little green red-eared sliders that we all used to get as children. The poor things never really had a chance with the poor quality fish food and those plastic islands with their fake palm tree, and the poor excuse for a turtle tank. The wee turtles would die from malnutrition or dirty water or a thousand other things. Yes, now the salmonella scare keeps them above that tiny size in the stores, but I remember when you could buy them in department stores. I’ve longed for a tortoise for years, but I did my research and they need a lot of room to be happy, and if you can’t make your pet happy then why do you have it? There were a few millipedes and centipedes and Madagascar hissing coakroaches. They also had Tomato Horn Worm larvae (cattiplliar) yes those big green ones you find in your garden, but these are not fed on tomatoes because that makes them toxic and they are being raised as food for the herps. I was told that some lizards really like them. I didn’t get any because I would have raised them until they were moths and let them go.

I did not feel the same way about the mice and gerbils. Mainly because they make me itch just walking near their cages. When I had herps years ago I fed frozen mousechops. It’s exactly what it sounds like. Though the last herp I kept was a bearded dragon and the biggest food it got up to was crickets with extra vitamins sprinkling on them, those I fed live because the Beardie needed the movement to want to feed. For whatever reason my beardie kept hibernating on me. I got more and more heat for the cage and nothing I could do would keep it from curling up under it’s dish and passing out. When I finally took her back to the breeder he was very happy with her. He said she looked plump and healthy and she was off schedule from his other breeders so he was very happy to have her back. It was my last try at herps. I thought I was over the bug, then we saw the Bearded Dragons today. They were those amazing orange and yellow ones that look like they’re on fire. But better yet they were some of the friendliest Beardies I’ve ever interacted with, they just seemed to have more personality than most. From biggest to smallest they were some of the most touchable and calm lizards I’d ever seen. Pili tried to talk me into getting one so she could visit it. I stood firm, I wasn’t here to buy. I don’t believe in impulse pet purchases.

We went back to our house, where Carri and Jon were waiting, with the purchases Pili had made for work. I’d helped her be strong and not get one of the little Beardies, because both of us had understood that Carri didn’t want her to buy any for their home. We came back singing the praises of the Beardies and Carri said, "You can have a lizard or a snake just no spiders." Big misunderstanding, so I grabbed the car keys and we went back to buy Pili a lizard. She picked out one, we went back home and the baby lizard so charmed Carri that she wanted one, so back to the show we went again. So Carri and Pili are the proud owners of two baby Bearded Dragons. I admit that it took a lot of will power for me to pass the Beardies up three different times, but I’m glad I did. If I decide to get back into herps I want to be sure.

Honestly, Jon and I have been thinking about a tank of Poison Dart Frogs, or one of those tall cages of old world Chameleons. It would be more like a fish tank where you don’t interact with the animals, but admire them. But those Beardies sure were cute today. Pili’s Beardie sat on me while I twittered and I thought again of my dream of having a shoulder lizard since I’m allergic to everything else that would do it, but I don’t think you can house train a Beardie, can you? If not then the shoulder idea would eventually lose it’s appeal. But they certainly were charming today. I am proud of myself for standing firm and not getting one, but also slightly wistful. I know exactly where the tank would go in my office.

How to have your cake and stay on your nutrition plan, too.

First have small piece of desert. Small means anything wider than two inches is a no-no. Second enjoy eating it, no guilt, you’ve given yourself permission, so enjoy the food. Your body mass may differ from ours. If you are substantially taller than I am, then size up accordingly, but be honest with yourself. But if you’re more than a foot taller than me then you can handle more cake. Not fair, just true. It takes less calories to run my body than it would if you doubled me in size, think the gas mileage in a bigger car versus a smaller one.

Okay, now we have had cake and enjoyed it. It was good. We were celebrating watching Julie & Julia with friends. The movie is charming, romantic, realistic, and all about food, relationships and what you thought your life would be and what your life really turns out to be. It’s a movie about the wonderful surprises that seem like disasters in the beginning, but in the end are exactly what you need to be the best and happiest you possible. It really is that up-beat a movie. But be warned you will come out of this movie wanting to eat something good, and, or, cook something good. This was a good double date movie, but then we had to go out and get rich deserts to get that craving out of the way. If you let a craving build it just gets worse, give in, a little (this applies only to food other cravings must be weighed on a case by case basis). Jon and I find that eating what we want when we really want it helps us stick to the overall nutrition plan.

We also had cake because the couple we were double dating with was Carri and Pili. I think we were all celebrating Carri being here to go to the movie and eat cake after her car accident earlier this week. We posted a picture of her Jeep, and it looks even worse in person. Carri is all right, wrist still sprained and still doctoring the cuts and chemical burns those from the air bag, but she’s doing well. They’re going car shopping today because the jeep was a total loss, so she needs a new car.

Interestingly Carri and I are the halves of our couples that usually cry the easiest. We’re the tough ones, so it just makes sense that some Hallmark commercials do us in on the tears. Pili and Jon find this amusing or just charming. At Julie & Julia last night it was Jon and Pili who teared up several times. I turned to Jon at the end and said, "Are you crying?"

He nodded, having to take his glasses off to wipe his eyes. I look around Carri and find that Pili is doing the same thing. What the heck? I’ve needed to cry for days, but haven’t let myself. There’s always been something to do, people to take care of, deadlines, pages, no time for tears. I’ve been a rock, then we’re eating brunch just minutes ago and a clip from "Christian the Lion" comes on, and it’s the reunion scene where the almost full grown lion comes running across the open ground in Africa to see the two men who raised him. He not only remembers them, but he hugs them, and does the head rubbing that is a sign of great affection in lions. I started to cry. Don’t know why, but I did. That was what finally let me give up some of the pressure from this last week. Told you, Hallmark commercials, or innocuous TV clips are more likely to make me cry than the usual stuff. I don’t know if Carri has cried this week yet, or if we’re both just trying to maintain. I haven’t asked and I won’t. We’re both too guy for that. But standing there crying about this lion and I know it’s not really the lion at all. But I know that sitting in the movie theater listening to my husband cry softly, I was just happy to have Carri at my side. I couldn’t cry with her there; didn’t want to. Weird?

Back to the deserts we got to celebrate. Here’s how you have your cake and your diet, too.

Gave into craving, satisfied it, now temptation is gone. Back to being good-ish. Jon and I did allow ourselves to have a little more cake before the end.

I have no pages to show for today, or none that I’m keeping. I got very impatient with myself about it. I started to really beat myself up, then I thought well there is the new computer. It’s not really the computer itself that’s freaking me out, it’s the new monitor. It looks so different from my old one, or any of the monitors I have on any of my other computers. Changing in the middle of the book is hard and I knew it would be, but I remember yesterday thinking, I can do this. It’s not so hard. Then we got the call from Carri about the car accident. Strangely, priorities changed.

Today Carri made me go to my office. She said something like, "I’m not here to distract you from work. I’m here to make sure you work." I don’t argue with reasoning like that usually, and today I listened even harder. One, I was glad that Carri was all right enough to come to work. Two, anyone who can use one arm to fend off a tire that has just come crashing through their windshield is not someone to be argued with. So I went to my office to work.

I couldn’t do it. I couldn’t settle down enough to focus. I finally did a long meditation and felt some better, but the scene still wasn’t working. So, I went over to check and see how Carri was doing. She was doing all right. The next time I checked on her she’d voluntarily laid down for a nap and that told me just how bad she was feeling. She did manage to get some work done today and the e-mails and business letters actually read well and were to the point. On Vicodin you don’t want me to write business anything. Jon, too, is out for the count on pain killers. Apparently, Carri is made of sterner stuff. But wait, we learned that yesterday.

By end of day the scene still wasn’t working and I couldn’t figure out why. The last time I came over to the main part of the house I suddenly started to crave ice cream. I looked at Carri, and said, "Are you wanting ice cream?" She was, so I drove and took her out to get ice cream. We got ice cream for Jon and Carri’s wife, Pili. They got waffle cones to the side. Jon got Goldcoast Chocolate like us, but Butter Pecan for Pili. We put her ice cream in the freezer so she could get it when she picked Carri up to go home. But while we were out getting the desert I talked about the scene that was kicking my ass. With the right people sometimes it helps to talk about it. Jon is one of those people and it turns out Carri is another. By the time we got back to the house I realized that the big party scene to try and introduce the remaining guards was too many people in too big a bunch. It was just not the right way to intro everyone and my subconscious had known it all day. It had just been waiting for my conscious mind to catch up with it. So I’ll change the day in the book from Saturday to a Sunday then have Merry go into work for Monday and intro the remaining characters in much smaller groups. Much more manageable both for me as a writer and you guys as readers.

So tomorrow I tackle the new monitor and do actual pages on it. Jon has now adjusted the brightness, the contrast, and the amount of zoom. The monitor is huge compared to my others, but Jon got me the smallest one he could find that sat flattish to the wall. Tomorrow we conqueror this new piece of technology. I have a book to finish and I can’t be a big baby about this, but with the new computer I can print. It prints every time with no hesitation. It isn’t doing any of the flaky things the old one was doing. Very happy about that.

But I was beating myself up about the fact that changing computers in the middle of a book and having my assistant and good friend get in a car accident was throwing me off my game. Then I thought, if I were my own friend what would I say to me? Well, I’d be a lot kinder, a lot more understanding, and cut my friend a lot more slack than I was cutting me. So, I decided to act as if I was my friend and not my enemy and treat myself just a little more gently. Things went better after that, and even better after ice cream and visiting. I was just really, really glad to have Carri here today to visit with, hell, to do anything with. Pages or no pages, it was a very good day.