Know ThySelf

One of my writer friends asked a question the other day.

"How do you decide what project to work on next?"

It's been, for a while, pretty easy for me. I work on whatever project is due out the door first. I also know what I'm capable of doing, as far as writing goes, and that's where I think is the important work.

Yes, I CAN churn out a 50,000 word crappy novel in a month. But what I don't seem capable of doing is bothering to rewrite the thing. It's so bad I may as well just start over...

What I can do, generally, is write about 500 - 2,500 words in a week, that are GOOD words. Sometimes I feel I should do more, sometimes I feel I should do better, sometimes I feel like I should sit my butt down in the chair and work-work-work.

But I don't.

And so, when I'm planning... I plan for what I know I can and WILL do.

500 - 2,500 words per week.

So, if a call for submissions is due on, let's say February 1st. And they want stories between 2,500 words and 5,000 words... well, typically my stories are about 3,300 words, unless they're longer stories, in which case they run between 8,000 - 11,000... And I assume that while I'll have some good weeks, I'll also have some bad weeks. So, for a short-short, I try to start about four weeks before the story is due. That gives me three weeks to write it, a week to review and fix things (and extra oh shit time). And a longer story - for some reason I find it easier to be productive on longer pieces... I have more 2,500 weeks rather than 500 weeks. I try to start around five to six weeks ahead of time.

But this year, I really want to try to work on some longer pieces. I have a couple of novellas burning around in my brain, and one full-length novel.

So what do I start with?

Is it the characters that yell loudest? Not really. I have some really loud characters that have already had their stories told and they refuse to move the fuck out. (I'm looking at you, Master Hooke.) And sometimes the characters that talk to me least - at first - turn out to be the most interesting...

I put together soundtracks to get me into the mood for writing... and I write up my outlines (sometimes that happens on paper, sometimes that happens almost entirely in my head) and then I work on whatever piece I have the best foothold in. I'm not a pantser. I struggle with the whole NaNoWriMo process because if I just *write* my characters wander off thataway and I have no idea where they're going or what they're going to do when they get there. Which, I know, works really well for some people. I'm more of a "if we're going to my dad's, I know it'll take about four hours to get there, and I'm likely to be hungry, and shouldn't we stop for gas somewhere along the way?"

So, I write whatever I think I can make the most progress in before I'm back at that blank paper going "Oh, fuck me sideways, what now?"


PS - Don't forget to stop by the Smutty Advent Calender. Only a few days left before it's over!

Blah blah fabulous new shoes blah

Just so you know where the title comes from... this is one of my daughter's favorite books. And one of our favorite books to read to her.

There's a bunch of suggestions as to what the child is grumpy about... did you get up on the wrong side of the bed? Did you stub your toe?

And our favorite; did you have to go over to some adults' house where everything was weird and fragile and you couldn't touch anything and the adults all sat around talking about BORING stuff?

In the background picture, you see a bunch of adult torsos and legs (for some reason, kids in stories never seem to look UP) and conversation bubbles which say things like "blah blah furnace filter blah" "blah kidney stones blah blah" "blah blah fabulous new shoes BLAH."

My husband and I have used that phrase "blah blah fabulous new shoes BLAH!" for several years now, usually meaning "we talked about something that was dull" to describe parties, office problems, neighbor problems... For example: "Well, the UBC had a meeting to discuss the CAR and the ISP issue, blah blah fabulous new shoes blah." (No, as a note, I don't understand any of that, either. Something I think the husband doesn't actually understand any of it either, and neither does anyone else, they're just all involved in a massive game of blind man's bluff.)

Which is basically my long-winded way of saying there's not really a theme to today's entry, I'm just babbling. Blah blah furnace filter blah!

I finally got paid for Golden Moment. I know, I know, it's terrible gauche to talk about money, but still... getting a check for the work. BIG DEAL! That's a thing off my list. I am now officially a paid writer. (I've had a few other things published in small literary magazines that I was "paid" in contributor's copies... some of which I never actually GOT, mind you...) So that was exciting. Now, admittedly, selling short stories is the writer's equivalent of working an internship. You're not really getting paid. Not really.

Given the amount of work I put into Golden Moment; probably 8-10 hours of actually writing, an hour or so reading edits and crits, another 3 hours making those changes... I'm making ish about minimum wage. Which wouldn't be terrible if I was doing 10-12 hours a WEEK, but those hours were spread out over a few months. Not to mention the several months of stalking my inbox, but technically speaking, that was my off-time.

Which is not a bad thing, mind. I'm just saying, no one is going to get rich writing short stories unless they are incredibly prolific and in high demand.

What publishing shorts is for is getting your name out there. Getting experience writing in your chosen genre. Hopefully getting some fans. Making sure the publishers know that you've done your time in the trenches. And that someone else has taken a risk on your work, so maybe they can, too.

Like I said, I'm going to do NaNoWriMo this year. And I'm trying to decide what I want to work on. Right now, the two samples I posted (here and here) are the two things screaming loudest in my head to work on. Wormwood Trade a little louder than Blood Sight. I have almost a full head-worked outline for Wormwood Trade (if I can figure out how to show you my notes, I will, because some of it is pretty interesting from a technical perspective, but I don't have a scanner anymore, so... ) altho my characters are still a little hesitant to develop. I have characters for Blood Sight and a couple of key scenes that I want to hit, but no actual story-map.

Yes, I actually make story maps. I think that Hollywood does these too, where they sort of sketch up stick figures and write little dialogue bits next to them, or descriptions, and they move through the story LONG before the script is finalized, the parts are cast, or any of the special effects are developed. I thought it was a good idea, and I do the same thing. Altho I frequently write my scenes on post-it notes and move them around on the "map" as I work through the idea.

Which is to say right now Wormwood trade looks like this: girl and boy follow these GPS turn by turn instructions, which lead them from Point A to Point G and they go to B C D E and F in between. I just have no real idea who Girl and Boy are, as people. They may very well not go anywhere I want them to.

And Blood Sight looks more like this: Marcus and Rachel start here... somewhere they end up in Bad Guy's dungeon... and they have a friend, Raphael, who is an angel. There's a conspiracy and I think the head warlock is leading it? ...and I have no idea where they're going? Do we know where the fuck the hotel is? Why can't we get back on the interstate from Witchduck Road? We don't know where we're gooooooing... (this bad road trip memory brought to you by SciCon '92, VaBeach.)

I was also debating a bit, and writing a bit, about the werewolf urban supernatural romance (which would sequel Blood Sight) and while I did some research today about eliminating heat signatures and sniper rifles (I wonder if I'm on the FBI watch list yet...) I just couldn't seem to get the story flowing, thus you are not seeing it here...

So... my choices right now are:

Blood Sight: An urban supernatural romance. A very old vampire, Marcus, and a woman with the Sight, Rachel. There's a conspiracy to murder her because her abilities. She's not even aware of the extent of Power the Sight grants her. Not only does she get glimpses of the future, but she is also immune to most warlock and vampire abilities; since she Sees things As They Are, she's not vulnerable to the glamour that vampires and some other creatures use to hide themselves from mortals, beguile them, or otherwise harm them. Rachel has a twin brother, Noah, who's a warlock and may or may NOT be involved in the conspiracy to murder his own sister. (Don't ask me, I don't know!)

Or

Wormwood Trade: Steampunk time-travel romance: The Wormwood Trade is a pirate operation; using forbidden technology they travel between parallel universes, each one similar to, but not exactly like, their own. They can move items and people from one dimension to another. For a price. When a noble loses his only child to war, he pays the exorbitant costs to have an almost mirror image of her taken from a universe where she did NOT die... but when the mirror is discovered by her fiancee, who knows she died six years ago, what will happen? Is she an acceptable substitute, or have the years they've been apart (for him) changed him too much? Can she love the man he is now, or will she continue to pine for the man he was before suffering so much grief and loss?

Any opinions?

Flash Freaking Fiction Friday

Well, You asked for it, you got it (toyota! Or am I the only one who remembers those commercials? Nevermind, I'm old. I know.)

I asked for some flash fiction prompts. I've only gotten one at a time thus far. Not this week, no, no... this week I get SEVEN! Holy crap!

So... Keep your eyes on the ball, and I'll get back to you!

Dave B asks for: shards, endless, sundering, tree

Kyra gave me: train, cowboy, run, rainy

Rhonda tells me I should do: chimpanzee, pwn (or own), pioneer, sunset

Lenora gives me: tryst, petticoat, morose and bonded

Zac wants to see what I'll do with mysterious, betrayal, war and flee

Liz likes feline, pinned, stalk and frame (with words like that, this one might be NSFW... we'll see)

and Elliot wants to know about chalice, reproach, honor, and pickling.

I'll let you know as I complete them!

What's Your Name, Little Girl?

True story...

I excel at freaking out.

It doesn't take a lot to get my stress meter over 10 (it goes to 11!). And I'm really good at borrowing trouble. I try not to - it's been my experience thus far that "preparing for the worst" doesn't actually prevent any pain when I get to the worst, it just expands the amount of time that I'm upset - but it's been my habit for almost 30 years now, and it's not that easy to get past.

So, yesterday was... not a good day.

I got some edits done, was pretty happy with a finished story. I read it. I put it away. I brought it out and read it out loud. (I'm told this is supposed to help me. I don't know if it really does or not. I've found some errors that way, but mostly not. I think my beta readers are pretty good about catching my grammar mistakes.)

I double checked the submission requirements - I've had it pounded into my head that failing to follow any submission requirements, no matter how trivial, stupid or arbitrary, is grounds to have my submission rejected and my birthday redacted.

In between, I did my normal "day" stuff. Grocery shopping. Housecleaning. Fiddling around on various social networks. Played some Warcraft. You know. Stuff.

Got the mail.

Commence freak out.

Apparently my bank is making some changes. That is to say, they're doing away with my free-checking. $7 a month bank fee, unless I maintain a minimum balance or use direct deposit (I do). Plus a $5 fee, per check card (that's 2, one for me, one for my husband) per month, with no waivers for that fee.

About a year ago, the bank changed me over from Visa to Mastercard. I discovered exactly what a pain in the ass changing accounts is; I do a LOT of things online. Seems like every few days for about three weeks I was getting another email that said, "give us a new credit card number!" And then they cancelled our "rewards" program. It really wasn't that much of a rewards program, honestly. About once a year I could get a $50 cash deposit put back into our checking account, and that around Christmas, so it was useful, but not like fantastic or anything. Mostly they discounted any "regular" charges, so things like my rent, electric, food, or you know, the stuff I actually NEED didn't count as "money spent" anyway. Shrug. Whatever.

But taking the same (or less!) services than I have had for the last 10 years and now charging me $120 a year for it?

So, I'm spazzing.

And I get an email.

"Dear Ms. Townsend,

I think you may have meant to send this to {Contact*}. She doesn't work here at {Publishing Company}. Her address is {Contact@Differentcompany.org}

Sincerely,

{Someone I Never Heard Of}"

Great.....

I triple checked the submissions requirements. No, no, I sent it to the right email address (as listed in the submission request!) Ok, {Contact} is the person who POSTED the Call for Submissions... and {Company} is the place that's publishing them... there's no other contact information listed. There's no link to {Company.}

Freak. Freak.

I googled {Company} and discovered that {Someone I Never Heard Of} was indeed the person I wanted to send my submission to.

Lovely. Just lovely. It's not entirely my fault, but perhaps I should have been a little more careful, done the googling first... I should have done research! Damn it, freak out more! She's going to think I'm a complete idiot (you are a complete idiot!) and not want to look at my submission because I'm a moron. (and your work is terrible anyway.)

I write her an email back and explain my mistake. She seems gracious enough about it.

But of course, my brain's already in full botheration mode.

So, nothing I can do about it now... I push it aside and start making dinner. Only to realize after I've cut up the onion and started sauteing it that I forgot to take the phyllo out of the freezer. You cannot microwave thaw that stuff... I stare at the partially started dinner. Great. Now what?

Around this time, my husband comes home. I haven't quite curled up on the kitchen floor and started sobbing, but I'm almost there.

(Yes, I'm aware that none of these things are tragic. No one's going to beat me with a horsewhip for making mistakes. And everything is fixable. I know. It's part of my being bi-polar, and I can't really do shit about it. Sometimes I just fall to pieces.)

So, I'm telling him about all the stupid that's going on and he's watching me with that semi-comforting, somewhat smug look. While I don't think he likes that I'm bi-polar, I'm almost certain that he does like dealing with my little domestic problems because he can fix them.

"Wait," he stops me about halfway through my rant. "Who did you say answered your email?"

"{Someone I never heard of.}"

"I know her!" he exclaims. "I read her blog."

"...."

* Names have been omitted because I don't want to sound whiny at a particular individual if the story doesn't get accepted, because you know, that's just rude.

A Chat With Someone Else; S. M. Reine

I've read an awful lot of books in the last few days... one of them was 19 Dragons, by S.M. Reine... she's a charming woman, very funny, and I've spent some time "talking" with her across various online mediums, including Twitter.

I have to say first off that 19 Dragons wasn't at all what I expected. I wasn't sure what I expected, but the delightful, witty, and exceptionally poetic novella was NOT it. Truly, a wonderful, wonderful piece... so, Before we get to know my guest a little better, I'd like to say you should probably pick this up, because it's really quite fabulous.

Lynn: Obviously, as a writer, you're just a little on the strange side. What's the oddest thing you do regularly?

S.M.: I disassemble my food. All of it. I don't think I've ever eaten a sandwich by biting the whole thing. Instead, I eat the cheese rolled around the tomato, then shred and devour the meat, and then eat the crust of the bread, and... oh, you get the idea. I'll even do it to whole foods, like bananas.

Lynn: Tell me about how you set up to get some writing done; is coffee/caffeine on your Must Have list before working? Do you have a ritual? Favorite writing spot?

S.M.: I used to have a luxurious writing ritual involving a snifter of brandy, lingerie, and mood music. (Really.) Now that I'm a mom, it's more like guerilla warfare. I write whenever the Helpful Baby is distracted by his feet for more than five seconds. It's harder, because I can't get In the Mood anymore, but it really makes me value my occasional free time. Procrastination is at an all time low in my writing life. I just don't have time for it.

Lynn: We've all answered the question, "If you could talk to any writer, alive or dead, who would it be?" Is there a particular writer (or other famous person) that you'd like to have tossed out on their ear?

S.M.: Ooh. I can think of a few modern writers I wouldn't mind tossing into the fires of Mount Doom, but I have a personal rule against speaking ill of living writers. Instead, I'd like to sacrifice Oscar Wilde. I think he sat around making up pretentious quotes and then cobble them into "stories." I love the guy, but he was a hack.

Lynn: Have you ever done something specifically to "get book fodder?" Tell me about it.

S.M.: I refused to evacuate when I had an insane forest fire practically at my back door. I was entranced by the snowing ash and the bloody hue of the remaining sunlight. The whole side of the mountain glowed with smoldering trees. It was the closest to apocalypse I've ever seen. So horribly dangerous, but so moving and inspirational. Of course, I was younger and much stupider at the time.

Lynn: When did you first decide you wanted to write? What inspired you?

S.M.: I realized writing was my Destiny when I wrote my proto-feminist vision of X-Men (titled "Z Women") in second grade. It was basically terrible fanfic that expressed my irritation at the comics seeming to favor the male mutants over the female mutants. Not much has changed, really.

Lynn: What are some of your favorite books? Anything you'd particularly recommend?

S.M.: I have a million favorite books. Since I've gotten into reading indie books, I have even more, since I feel like I need to advocate for these amazing, underrated novels. I've recently loved "An Apple For Zoe" by Thomas Amo, "Descended by Blood" by Angeline Kace, and "Found in Blood" by Maurice Lawless. (Everything is "blood," isn't it? Haha!)

Lynn: Do you have any word or grammar pet peeves?

S.M.: I'm nutty about commas. My old critique group used to call me the "comma cowgirl." They're so easy to mix up, and they seem to be one of the most frequent errors in a fledgling writer's manuscript. I also get pretty weird about adjectives.

Lynn: 19 Dragons reads like prose, but occasionally the story slips into a poetry, with staggered sentences and blank spaces. I found it intriguing. Without giving away too much of the story, what made you decide to work in this technique?

S.M.: I'd love to say that The 19 Dragons was a masterfully calculated work of art, but I actually had no idea what it was about or where it was going until the end. I had to go back and do a lot of tweaking for consistency because I was really, really pantsing it on that one. The occasional "poetry" pieces appeared on their own. Total accident.

Lynn: Any upcoming new projects we should be on the look-out for?

S.M.: Actually, I have quite a lot coming up. My next appearance will be in an anthology called "Here Be Monsters." The sequel to "Six Moon Summer," called "All Hallows Moon," is coming this fall. I'm also organizing a charity anthology to benefit St. Jude Children's Research Hospital that will be released in December. Hard to believe I wasn't publishing anything a year ago, whereas I'll have five publications in 2011!

Lynn: Well, thanks for your time, and good luck! I know I've enjoyed getting a peek into your head!

What? Are you still here? Go... buy the book! Go read. Shoo!

Just a Quickie

Yesterday I was reading through a marketplace for submissions; essentially a web site where you can go and see if any publishers are looking for a story like yours, or to get ideas for new stories to write. I've got a bit of a gap between now and when my current WIP is due. (October 1, to be precise, and I've already written more than half of it...)

I wasn't even really looking hard for "new work". Just kinda getting a feel for it. Window browsing.

I came across one CFS that looked good; specifically looking for new writers, not at all published, or only published since June 2010. As my story in Steamlust isn't coming out til October, I'm pretty much exactly meeting those requirements.

However, the story call was Very Open. Topic/genre/setting all open, except for a few basic no-nos (which she spelled out, because we are NEW! Hehe!) No underage sex, no animals (shape-shifters don't count), no dead things (ditto on vampires being excluded.)

I book-marked it and wandered away from keyboard to do the dishes.

Open-ended... hmmm. I have a mostly finished story about ghosts/zombies. (I haven't really decided what they are, except for being recently deceased...) Maybe I could do that... well, haven't I written a lot of supernatural stuff recently?

And then I got hit with the inspiration mallet.

Literally. Hit.

Felt like someone walked up to me and wopped me on the head. I staggered backwards.

I hadn't thought about that particular episode in a long, long time. And honestly, as far as sex went, it wasn't that wonderful. It was kinda scary and had the thrills of possibility of being caught, which added to my excitement, but as far as technique? No. I was back in college and sex back then was never more than wham! bam! Heh. I didn't know any better and neither did my myriad lovers.

However... could I take the situation... and have a run with it?

Yes, yes I could.

And I did.

Two thousand words yesterday.

Almost another two thousand today.

And it's already done.

I don't know that I've ever written that quickly before.

Awesome!

Plotting, 101

So... now that I'm a "published writer" I've been dealing with a whole new world of weird. I'm sure that it's nothing different from what every new author has to go through. I mean, I don't feel any different - as a writer - than I did six months ago. I do what I do, when I do it. There's nothing any more or less magical coming out onto the page than there was last year. Just now, someone's paid me to do it. This apparently gives me some sort of fairy dust, and it seems like half the universe is trying to shake me up and get some for themselves.

Maybe I'm being unfair. I know my friends - and friends of friends, and neighbors of friends, and almost perfect strangers that someone passed my business card to - are excited.

But I'm no more the expert than I was. Nothing has changed. I know very little more about publishing than I did.

And I'm a terrible teacher. I discovered that years ago when I firmly decided that teaching high school English was not what I wanted to do with my life.

In the last few months since I've become "a published writer", I've been given several short stories, poems, incomplete manuscripts... "Just take a look..."

When?

I already am writing part-time, housekeeping part-time, being mom part time, trying to raid part time, and I'm beta-reading for a couple of friends already. Plus I have a huge stack of books that I want to read for pleasure.

I've done a couple of reads for people anyway. I never got thanked. They said nothing about my suggestions. This doesn't incline me to do it again.

And again, I'm not a good teacher. I'm not a writing coach.

Yesterday I spent some time with a newbie writer wanna be. (I say that because he hasn't actually written ANYTHING. He might be one step up on the circle of words than people who say causally at parties, "Oh, I've always wanted to write a book." Maybe. But in my view of the world, until you actually have written something. Anything. TO completion. You're not a writer.)

"I have a main character," he says. "And a BBEG -"

"A what?"

"Big Bad Evil Guy??" he says, like I should know this. Really? I usually call that person the antagonist. Or the villain.

"Ok."

"Now what?"

What do you mean, now what? I mean, maybe it's a legitimate question... it's not one that's ever occurred to me. But I've been writing stories for as long as I can remember, so maybe... back when I was eleven... it did, and I've forgotten...

"Well," I said, tapping my fingers against the desk, "What does your bad guy want?"

"I don't know."

"Then why is he bad?"

"Huh?"

"Plot is about conflict... " Hasn't this been covered in some basic high school English class? "You're telling me your story has a protagonist and an antagonist; that's a classic formula; man vs. man."

"Well, they're cats."

"Same thing..."

"No, it's not, they..."

"THE SAME THING for the purposes of PLOT DEVELOPMENT. Man vs. man. Cat vs. Cat. Character A vs. Character B. So the first thing I suppose you need to start with is defining the conflict. Why are they fighting? What does A have than B wants? Or what is B planning that A wants to foil?"

Long silence.

"I guess I need a new bad guy."

Like I said, I'm a bad teacher, but I fell over laughing at this point. How can you have an antagonist that doesn't want anything? Even if they're the evil dictator and they have everything in the world under their paw, they want something - to stay in power, to crush the rebellion, to marry the sweetheart of the hero... they have goals, desires, plot devices.

* at this point I'd like to say I'm exaggerating part of this conversation for effect, grabbing bits of other conversations I've had recently to emphasize, and that we got cut off from our chat at this point, so I wasn't actually able to give him any helpful advice.

The best advice I ever got on plot development didn't come from a Creative Writing class (I've taken three...) or another writer. It came from a gaming book; Storyteller's Guide to Vampire, the Masquerade, 2nd edition. It is, by far, my favorite gaming book. In addition to having more rules, nifty items for your characters and the typical stuff found in all role-playing books, this one included a couple chapters on HOW TO DEVELOP YOUR STORY.

That's all Roleplaying is; group story-telling. You have one person leading the events, and a bunch of other players reacting/acting/developing character... I highly recommend role-playing as a way to sharpen your writer's eye. Because while we all joke that our novel characters don't listen to us, that's nothing - NOTHING - like what a bunch of truly independent characters will do to your plot. Anything you haven't thought of, they'll try it. Any area you haven't developed, they'll go that way... any NPC (non-player character) that MUST NOT DIE will get shot in the first act for being rude. Players will run rough-shod over you, force you to think faster and more creatively than four to seven other people, and your reward is that years later they'll tell stories about the "good old days of your campaign" and you can sit by and smile.

Anyway, I don't think the Storyteller's Guide is available anymore... in fact, I think Vampire's current edition (4? 5?) isn't even called "the masquerade" anymore. Which is too bad, because this is a great book.

It's divided into 6 chapters: The Story, The Chronicle, The Setting, The Motive, and The Enemy. Yes, that's only 5. But the sixth chapter is mostly game mechanics, and is therefore not relavant to today's lesson.

Story discusses the parts of a story; concept, plot archetypes, themes and mood, incentives, story structure, beginnings, middles, ends, loose ends, aftermath.

Chronicle includes what are technically game details, but can also be really useful for ideas like a story map (outline! I am NOT a pantser writer. I need a road map or I'll never freaking get there. Other people don't, and that's great, I envy them.), troubleshooting, consistency, handling time, the web (not the www, but what the character does affects people that he may not ever notice, but that can come back to bite him in the ass later.) tension and humor.

Setting: where does your story take place? Who lives there? What is life like there regularly? Questions like these come up in games, they also come up in novels; particularly if you're writing a novel in a world not our own. In our world, people assume things like toilets and toasters and telephones. What is it like somewhere else?

Motive; here we come back to what I was saying earlier; What does your character want? Who's preventing him from getting it? What does the villain want? Why does your hero care? Everyone has motives; even wild animals have motivation (they're hungry, you're scaring them, you're too close to their den). People don't act in a vacuum. Even if the motive is; like a six year old who broke the windows by throwing rocks at them, and the parent is going, "Junior, WHY did you do that?" and the only answer is, "Seemed like a good idea at the time."

Enemy: How to create a memorable bad guy. Yes, in both games and novels, you can send hundreds of redshirts (sorry, star trek term) in to die or get in the way... but that gets boring. So you frequently need a bad guy; and you need to love your bad guy. If, as a writer, you hate him, he's just not going to be very much fun. Love your bad guy. Feed him, talk to him, canoodle with him. Find out what he wants, what he loves, what he hates. Discover that, despite being an evil overlord, he's got a soft spot for his Aunt Mabel. Real people are seldom all bad or all good.

And those are the things that make them interesting.

Thanking Buddha

Social networking is interesting, isn't it?

One of the things I love about social networks is the ability to meet people that I might not normally talk to; for instance, I'm not a fan of green things (plants, you know) but one of my favorite blogs is written by a man who reviews people's lawns and gardens. I don't know half of what he talks about, but his style, my friend, is what's important. He's brilliantly funny.

I don't always, however, remember how I met someone.

Talking with my lovely editor - who is just lovely, have I said that? I had the hardest time not touching her hair while we were talking - recently, we were discussing how we had met.

I didn't even know this story, so it was pretty fun.

We frequent the same coffee shop, the Bean There. Last year, it was located just up the street from me. Then it moved. Tragedy! Have I mentioned I loathe downtown Norfolk? Well, I do. (It's slightly less loathsome now that I know my way around better.) But while they were in the process of moving, I was sans coffee for three months.

Do not get between a writer and her coffee.

Amy, the owner, and I had these drug-trade meetings in parking lots. I would hand her an envelope containing cash or a check, and she would hand me a cloth bag containing a pound or two of her custom blended and roasted coffee beans.

Apparently at some point I commented on this exchange on the Bean There's facebook page.

Kristina, my editor, was looking on the page to see when the shop would be re-opening and saw the comment. She clicked on my link.

Kristina is/was doing some "connecting" through her Buddhism enlightenment - forgive me if I get this wrong, I don't really know much about Buddhism - and was entertained to learn that we were born very close together. Her birthday is exactly a week after mine, although she's almost exactly five years older than I am. Further prodding on my Facebook page and she discovered that my husband and her husband have EXACTLY the same birthday.

She decided to write me an email to see if I would mind taking a Facebook friends request from a perfect stranger.

I didn't mind. I like meeting new people.

A few weeks later, she put a call out for a place to do a book reading/signing. I suggested the Bean There. It was a raging success!

Kismet Happens.

Shilling

The scene, early morning.

Eight o'clock classes hadn't yet started, and those students unfortunate enough to have them were just starting to crawl out of bed and get their daily routines started.

The Marketplace was sparsely populated at this time of day. Mostly a few stragglers came in, grabbed their caffeinated beverage of choice, and headed off to class. A few, for whom breakfast was a critical part of their day, stayed, lingering over toast and eggs.

A girl with long, straight hair and clear, grey eyes, sits in the center of the room. She is by herself, her tray neglected. A book is propped upright, leaning precariously against a paper bowl half full of milk-soggy cereal. She is quite obviously not in the mood for company, nor noticing the lack.

Didn't matter.

The other girl arrived in the cafeteria. She had badly dyed black hair and wore an almost obnoxious shade of cranberry red lipstick that didn't suit her. Her tray was dotted with her choice repast - bagel and annoying small envelop of cream-cheese, large Mountain Dew, and plate full of strawberries - was bored. And wanted company more than she wanted to appear polite. Instead of looking aside and seating herself at another table, eating breakfast alone for the third time that week, the seventh week in a row - astonishing how constant her lack of breakfast conversation was - she sat next to the reader.

"Is this seat taken?" she asked. It wouldn't have mattered much if the answer was yes. She sat with the intent of taking it over by hostile force if necessary. "Love that book," she continued, jerking her chin at the paperback. "I read it twice last year." That was true enough. What went unsaid is that she'd read it five times the year before that. And probably a dozen times altogether. She read a lot. And re-read a lot. First because she had a limited allowance and if she'd purchased new books every time her bedside table was bare, she'd never have money for other things, like food and clothes. Secondly, the books seemed somehow like old friends. Reading again was like having a conversation with a someone she hadn't seen in a few months. Or, at least, she assumed so. She'd never really had a friend.

The reader sighed and closed the book. "Good morning."

And that's how I met Liz, who would become my best friend.

In case you don't know, I'm the one who had no qualms annoying someone else who was reading. I have always loved to read; I still read avidly. But I found that particular morning something else about myself; I also love to talk.

So today, I'd like to talk about this: My best friend's second novella has been released today. I'm so pleased for her I could squeal.

(Her first novella, Of One Mind, is also available, as well as the companion short story that was written for charity... )

Now, her stuff's not for everyone, but if you like exceptional love stories and you don't much care about the gender of the two people in love, these books are truly wonderful. (Personally I like Safe Harbor better...)