Tonight I was reading “The Historian” while relaxing after a grueling day of parenting. This is a book I hated, liked, liked a little more, LOST for 3 months after moving, found and hated again, before liking it again. I’m incredibly impressed by the level of research that went into it, which is my all-time least favorite thing to do when writing. In fact, it’s the research that keeps me from writing.

After reading, I took a super-hot shower to relieve my aching sinuses, and of course the first thing that I thought was how I’ll never ever be that good or great a writer. Passable, definitely; popular, possibly; profound? Never. I could never get past stories of whimsical women and romantic men who have nothing more to offer than that.

But then, as I write this, I think of my characters. Adjhani, an exiled princess at age 17 who finds there is more to life than faith, magic and the state and nothing more potent than the power of sacrifice. Or her granddaughter, who ruins her life and finds love and special needs parenting at the end, and a kingdom that requires her to save choose between her family and her country. Or Caroline, a med student that falls in love with a killer and thief, while coping with her mother’s breast cancer battle and her long-dead father’s illness. Or that killer, my favorite character, Louis, who leaves prison to find sin, love, redemption and the danger of a serial killer.

Or the novel I’m planning that is SUCH a great idea I have no doubt it would get me into an MFA program, if only I had my BA.

Not as bad as I thought. There are more stories, but I’ve revealed enough. OK, I agree. I rock. Back to editing…

I got off my somewhat generous BUTT last night and did a few things that I am VERY proud of.  Firstly, I brushed off my copy of Shapeshifters, my fantasy, and set to editing again.  Augh, the last edit was in January!  When will I ever finish?  Especially now that I feel good about this novel and taking it to the next level, making it more literary - at least that’s what I expect from my new ideas.

Then I emailed 2 writer’s groups.  One is local, the other may have a local chapter.  The Greather Lehigh Valley Writer’s Group invited me to their June event, hope I’m not on vacation! But if so, I’ll go to the next one.

Then I actually emailed Katherine Neville, who is writing a sequel to “The Eight” and she actually wrote back!!  How cool.   She’s got a pro redesigning the site, I went to that person’s site and found a wonderful cache of stuff for writers.

Then I saw from my WECAI newsletter that there is a place that writers can sell serialized novels or novellas.  I have a piece that’s perfect for it, but I’m only 8000+ words in and I need 20,000 written and polished.  So that will be my summer project, along with the editing.

And that’s it, I think.  More thinking on how to blend my ideas in a creative online way and lots of business marketing, but that’s all for now.  It’ll be a busy summer!