Just answer your cell phone, with Hugh Jackman and Daniel Craig

It’s hard to imagine that anyone would believe their cell phone call was more important than the enjoyment of watching Daniel Craig and Hugh Jackman on a Broadway stage, but it’s exactly what happened last week.

If you can’t remember to either silence or shut off your cell phone during a once-in-a-lifetime experience, the rest of us would like to respectfully request that you just stay home.

-S

This is what really happens when an author finishes a book

I have to finish my latest book by Thursday. As a result, I’ve spent the last couple of weeks writing pretty much around the clock. I would love to believe I’m alone on this whole thing, but the vast majority of the authors I know do the same stuff. The deadline looms in the distance. We laugh and believe we have all kinds of time. Days pass. Each of us copes with the impending drop-dead date in his or her own way.

Some make a detailed outline, write the book, and make the deadline with no problem. (Susan Mallery, I’m looking at you.) The rest of us employ a variety of methods to finish. I know authors that do stuff like check into a hotel room and disable their Internet access. There are others who tell the spouse and kids they don’t want to see them unless there is fire or blood. Someone else I know just stays up till the book’s done. One of the questions I get a lot from people who don’t do this is “How do you do this?”. Today, we’ll explore that question.

This is how I write a book. I do not recommend this to anyone else. It’s called “my process”. I would love to be one of those normal people, like Susan Mallery, who writes a gorgeous outline, writes from the start of the book to “The End”,  writes twenty pages a day, five days a week — it doesn’t happen. I write every day, but I’m not as prolific as she is. So, that brings me to the subject of today’s blog.

How I write a book

1. I get an idea. The ideas come from all kinds of weird stuff. The first book I wrote came from wondering what would happen if a US Attorney fell in love with a terrorism suspect. While I enjoyed writing it, that book will sit in a drawer till I feel sufficiently motivated to edit it. Unfortunately for everyone, the only way it’s going to sell in this marketplace is if I turned the attorney into a vampire or something.  I’m currently working on a series about a fictitious NFL team. The first book’s idea came while I was standing in the shower. (“What would happen if a NFL player fell in love with an opera diva?”) The second book’s idea came as a result of wanting to write about my heroine’s younger sister. She falls in love with a guy who used to play football, and is now a pregame show personality for FOX Sports. My heroine, Amy,  is incredibly independent. My hero, Matt, has an overwhelming need to take care of the women in his life. The third book — what would happen if another fictitious NFL player fell in love with a highly unlikely woman? I don’t want to say anything more about the plot, but right now, it’s my favorite of all three. I can’t wait to finish it.
2. I know I have a great idea when the characters I’d like to write start talking to each other inside my head. It’s even better if they’re arguing with each other. Romance novels (all fiction, really,) are driven by conflict. The characters in the book I’m finishing by Thursday argue a lot, which makes the falling in love part even sweeter.
3. This is how the book is constructed: I get the beginning, the end (yeah,) and typically, some of the scenes. They’re always out of order. I write the beginning. I write the end. I start writing random scenes. This requires re-writing, which separates an author from someone who just likes to write. Would it be easier if I wrote in a linear fashion? Oh, definitely. The entire time I’m writing, though, the book and the characters are “cooking” inside my mind. I never quite know what’s going to happen when I sit down to write every day.
4. I write single title romantic comedy, which requires me to write to a 100,000-word length manuscript. I need lots and lots of plot. I usually have a subplot. Right now, my subplot is the hero’s younger sister, who starts dating another character after a LOT of resistance from her brother.
5. Okay. I’m close to that 100,000 words. I have a beginning, an end, and lots and lots of scenes. I have learned through the past four books that it works best if I at least make a list of the scenes I have while I’m putting the book together. I write hooks (keeps you reading at the end of the scene and end of the chapter,) I check out the pacing and make adjustments, I write other stuff that may be needed to “stitch” the book together. This typically takes several days.
6. I edit as I work. The best editing is to have someone else read your work and give comments. I do that, too. The best readers are “cold” readers. In other words, they don’t read this genre, and they’ll tell me if the book drags, if my characters are real and likable, if they enjoy the story, on and on and on.
7. The book is finished. For people like me, it’s never “done”. One of the more valuable lessons I have had since I started doing this was something Jennifer Crusie said to me at a conference several years ago. Jennifer wrote what I consider the best contemporary romance novel in print — Bet Me. (There’s other versions available; I love the original cover, so there you go.) I was rhapsodizing about how much I love Bet Me. She just smiled at me and said, “If you brought me a copy of that book right now, I could show you all the places I wish I’d cut or rewritten.” Jennifer’s book is a multi New York Times bestseller. It’s still selling well, five years later. Seriously, it’s just about perfect. It was comforting to know that yeah, I’m not the only one who’s still thinking about the book and the story long after I shut off my laptop and try to catch up on whatever it is I didn’t do for the past several months while I was writing.
8. Find a new idea. The only working author is someone who is generating new product. A new book is like an exciting foreign country, or falling in love: It’s FULL of new and unexplored possibilities. It’s going to be the best yet. You’ll get every last thing out of your head and onto the page. This is the one.

I suppose I could list stuff like “take a shower,” “get to know my spouse again,” bla bla bla. That stuff’s boring. Mostly, it’s having the sheer determination to finish the book. It’s one page at a time, one scene at a time, one chapter at a time, and it’s done. Jennifer Crusie has also said that 85% of those asked say they’d like to write a book. The difference between those who write that book, and those who don’t, are those who keep writing till they finish. The difference between those who become authors (and those who don’t) are those who keep rewriting, those who use the constructive criticism they receive, those who are determined to improve their writing till they get the notice of the agents and editors they submit to. The difference between those who publish and those who don’t are those who, through sheer determination and persistence, find the agent and publisher that love their goofy little book, and believe in it enough to shepherd it through a process to publication that bears an uncanny resemblance to a season of “Survivor”.

It’s time to finish. I’ll spend the next three days writing, writing, writing, and sometime on Wednesday, I’ll type the most magical words to any author: “The End”. Here’s to everyone who has the ambition and the courage to finish.

-S

Insert SCREAM OF ANGUISH here!

Photo: www.seattlepi.com

http://blog.seattlepi.com/seattlesports/archives/180391.asp

-S

US consumers say their spending habits are changed for good

Blogging’s pretty low on the priority list right now, but hopefully, I’ll be back before too long. I posted a note this morning at Facebook stating that anyone who saw me on there before Wednesday, September 30th, should ask me how many pages I’ve written that day, and tell me to get back to work.

In the meantime, I found this fairly interesting, and I hope you will, too. People have changed their buying habits as a result of the depression recession.

http://www.reuters.com/article/domesticNews/idUSTRE58O5EN20090925

A majority of U.S. consumers say they have permanently changed their spending and savings habits in response to the global financial markets crash and recession, according to a Citigroup survey released on Friday.

About 63 percent of Americans polled said the way they spend and save has “forever changed” due to the downturn. Only 29 percent said they would go back to their previous patterns of spending and saving.

Things have changed at our house. It’s a positive thing. It’s surprising how many things just aren’t as important as they were a year ago, and we can happily do without them.

How has your spending and saving habits changed as a result of recession and job uncertainty?

-S

The Moose update

Moose, in extreeeeeeeme closeup…

Our Moose is almost eleven months old now. He’s going to the vet on Saturday morning for a pedicure. Of course, this is always a good excuse to see if they’d be so kind as to put him on the scale. He needs a weigh-in. When he’s not attempting to wheedle some People Food out of us (we do not feed him from the table, which doesn’t seem to dissuade him at all,) he’s looking for something new to chew.  The chew toys are less than interesting to him. The dining room wall is in need of a great drywall patcher, for instance. I’m afraid to find out how much this will cost. Moose also made sure the dining room chairs would be a permanent memento of his puppyhood.

Our next-door neighbors have been amazingly understanding. After all, Labs like to bark. Moose barks for a variety of reasons. He takes it as a personal insult if the local wildlife wanders into his back yard, and this must be immediately addressed. (The bunny who likes our yard probably wonders what his problem is.) He uses it as a form of communication. (“I have to go outside”, “I’m hungry. Does it matter it’s three hours till dinner?”, “My ball is stuck under the couch,” and my all-time favorite, “You are not worshiping me right now.”) Our neighbor a few doors down made the serious tactical error of complaining to The Dauphin about the occasional outside barking. We don’t let him bark incessantly, but sometimes, he needs to go outside, and once in awhile, he barks.

I’m looking forward to the next time this family’s three teenager/twentysomethings arrive home at oh, 1:30 a.m. on a weeknight, and rev their engines in the turnaround in front of our houses. I’ll be calling their parents to let them know they’ve awoken our dog. In a nice way, of course.

Moose has a couple of new toys. After all,  he’s destroyed most of the rest of the toys we’ve bought him. He now owns a Kong football, and a Kong chewing bone. (Yes, this seems to be a pattern.) Both toys squeak when he bites into them, which causes him to practically dance in glee. The football also brings on some fairly intense barking, which means it’s only brought out in daylight and for a few minutes at a time. We’re not sure if he dislikes the color, the texture, or the squeaking, but he’s determined to let that football know How Things Are. The bone came to our house yesterday afternoon. This morning, The Dauphin told me that Moose was tossing the bone over his head, catching it in his mouth, making it squeak, and having a grand old time.

When all this isn’t happening, no matter how exasperating our puppy can be, I adore him. I never thought I was a dog person before. There is nothing like someone who’s overjoyed to see you, even if he’s seen you five minutes ago, and he’s going to see you again soon after that. Plus, he rescued us, more than we rescued him.

We’re lucky he chose us.

-S

p.s. Ten-ish, 9/25/09

The Kong bone is history. Moose tore it apart loved it to death. Services are pending.

Won’t someone make a line of toys that are Lab-proof?

A message to my favorite football team, the Seattle Seahawks, and my absolute favorite football player, Patrick Kerney

Photo: Ben Margot/AP, www.seattletimes.com

And Seahawks fans everywhere watched with their hearts in their throats Sunday afternoon as Matt Hasselbeck lay on the turf. Again.

It’s the week before my deadline. This would be a great week to let a guest blogger handle things, but unfortunately, I don’t have that luxury. Yet. As a result, the stuff that’s happened over the past seven days or so may slide for a few days more. I’m sure the blogosphere will not come to a screeching halt as a result.

There was a little football contest Sunday afternoon in San Francisco that did not go the way I hoped it would. Somehow, I think it didn’t go the way the Seahawks hoped it would, either. We now have thirteen starters out due to injury. Again. There has to be some kind of explanation for this, but I’m at a loss to what it might be. In the meantime, the blame is flying thick and fast, and some of it landed on the shoulders of my favorite.

http://seattletimes.nwsource.com/html/dannyoneil/2009909011_oneil21.html

He ran 79 yards for a touchdown with 2:36 left in the first quarter, the longest run of his career. Well, at least it was the longest for, oh, another quarter. Gore ran 80 yards untouched for a touchdown the first time he touched the football in the second half.

“I’m man enough to say that second long run, I didn’t fit in my gap the way I should have,” defensive end Patrick Kerney said. “It cost the team.”

Kerney took a step toward quarterback Shaun Hill, giving Gore the window to run right by him. It was only a couple of feet, maybe less.

“It shows you how little it takes to win a football game,” Kerney said. “Those are two plays they executed and we didn’t.”

Those two plays led to the 14 points that were the difference in the game.

Ouch.

Okay. There were eight guys in the box Sunday afternoon during both those plays. I didn’t notice the other seven opening the can of man and saying they might have been a little responsible for this, too, and they wish it had turned out a little differently. Don’t even get me started on members of the secondary who are piling on, too. Hey, guys, where’s the “I” in “team”?

Have I mentioned I LOVE people who don’t make excuses? There are so few of them in life, I think it should be celebrated, and especially in pro sports. Of course, I don’t play pro sports, but there are few things in life that make me crazier than people who just can’t admit it when they’re wrong or made a mistake, offer a sincere apology, and move on.  Nobody likes confessing they’re less than perfect, but I’d like to think the mark of an adult is to say that sometimes, we all mess up.

I’ve been a Seahawks fan since 1977. (Obviously, I was still in utero at the time.) I own a Patrick Kerney jersey. It’s the only jersey I’ve bought in that thirty-two year period.

I’ll be wearing the jersey on Sunday afternoon.

Patrick, you’ll get ‘em on Sunday.

-S

Happy 60th birthday, Bruce Springsteen!

Bruce Springsteen

Photo: www.allaboutjazz.com

It’s pretty early on the Left Coast, but it’s good to seize the day, isn’t it?

Just like millions of other teenagers, I wanted to listen to something different than my parents did. “Born to Run” was the first record (yeah, I’m old,) I asked for. I’ve been listening (and dancing!) to Bruce Springsteen ever since.

It’s hard to believe he’s sixty. The AARP can wait, though. He’s busy.

Happy birthday!

Love,

-S

p.s. If you’d like to hear the song that started it all, please go to

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=8rGFfO5fUvE

A “tidal wave” of homeless students

I’ve been following this story now for a couple of months. It seems things will get much worse before they get better, due to the fact that ARMs continue to readjust on a monthly basis, more families are (still) out of work than at any time since the Great Depression, and school districts around the country are taking a chainsaw to budgets that are already slashed to the bone.

There are so many things in life that make me shake my head, but the biggest are those who were born on third base and think they hit a triple. It’s tough to climb out of poverty when you can’t depend on a roof over your head, regular meals and health care, let alone getting enough education to make a difference. For those who believe the homeless just don’t try hard enough to change their circumstance, I present the following.

http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/29356160/print/1/displaymode/1098

OXNARD, Calif. – Nine-year-old Daniel Valdez is absorbed in “The Swiss Family Robinson,” the fictional story of a family shipwrecked on a tropical island. In real life, he and his family also are marooned, but there is little romance in their tale of survival in this seaside town northwest of Los Angeles.

Daniel, his mother and five brothers, ages 1 to 17, live in a garage without heat or running water in a modest, low-lying neighborhood that sits between celebrity-owned mansions in the hills and the Pacific Ocean. Each morning, they arise at 6:30, get dressed and then leave quietly; they return only after dark — a routine born out of the fear that detection could mean the loss of even this humble dwelling.

Daniel and his brothers have been sleeping in the garage for more than a year — members of what school officials and youth advocates say is a rapidly growing legion of homeless youth.

While the problem may be worse in economically stricken regions like Southern California, where foreclosures and job losses are taking a harsh toll on families, anecdotal evidence suggests it is a growing issue nationally and one with serious ramifications for both a future generation and the overburdened public school system.

Research shows that the turmoil of homelessness often hinders children’s ability to socialize and learn. Many are plagued by hunger, exhaustion, abuse and insecurity. They have a hard time performing at grade level and are about 50 percent less likely to graduate from high school than their peers.

“Homeless children are confronted daily by extremely stressful and traumatic experiences that have profound effects on their cognitive development and ability to learn,” said Ellen Bassuk, a Harvard Medical School psychiatry professor and president of the nonprofit National Center on Family Homelessness. “They tend to have high rates of developmental delays, learning difficulties and emotional problems as a product of precarious living situations and extreme poverty.”

I realize I’ve said this before multiple times on my blog, and I’ll say it multiple times more. This is the richest nation in the world. How can we ever ignore what’s going on right under our noses? One-sixth of our population has no health insurance. Right now, the unemployment rate hovers around ten percent, or thirty million people. When we’re not dealing with that, it’s the skyrocketing homeless population, many of which are kids.

Tonight, Daniel Valdez sleeps in his cousin’s garage. His mom needs a job. He and his brothers need to get through school. He needs to know that someone, anyone out there, cares about him and his family. There are hundreds of thousands of Daniels in communities all over our country. He and his family need practical things, not empty platitudes or cliches.

What can you do to help? Could you take a bag of food to the local food bank? Could you donate a warm winter coat? Could you take school supplies to the local school, pay for someone’s PE uniform, offer someone a job at the business you own? Social services and government agencies are tapped out. How would you feel if you knew one kid was going to succeed because you helped, in even a small way?

-S

Don’t even ask about the Seahawks game

In the meantime, I’ll substitute dancing to Elvis Costello for the bottle of tequila which is starting to look really, really good right now…

-S

BOW DOWN TO WASHINGTON!

As loyal Huskies (and season ticket holders for many years!), this afternoon will be remembered as one of the greatest victories in Husky football history.

Jake Locker

photo: www.seattlepi.com

http://blog.seattlepi.com/seattlesports/archives/179716.asp

The Dauphin and I were returning from a family outing earlier this afternoon, and listened to the final minute of the game in his truck in the QFC parking lot. I can’t remember the last time I jumped around the grocery store parking lot screaming, and I wasn’t alone!

Congratulations, Huskies, and Bark for the Sark!

-S