What a year! Lloyd Alexander, Robert Jordan, Madeleine L'Engle - all gone! And Terry Pratchett has just been diagnosed with early onset Alzheimer's disease. The world of fantasy books still has a few good years from Pratchett, thank God. Now is the time to get to know him through his Discworld series and other books.

I am in Northern California and today we are doing nothing. Yup. That's our agenda for the day. We might visit a winery. We might go to a park and hike. We might read, write, snooze. We might not do anything. We're on vacation and that's what vacationers do.

I just found out that my monthly gig as Book Guru for a local weekly has ended. The company that puts out the weeklies in my area of the East has decided to end several weekly papers - due to lack of interest probably. Those areas were already served by a subscription weekly anyway. The sad thing is, that after a visit to Chrales M. Schulz's museum yesterday, I decided to do an article about comic strips and their usefulness as pre-literacy and early literacy tools, as well as their re-publications as books of collections. I'll leave their efficacy as social commentary to someone more interested in research than I am.

What this means - the end of my writing gig - is that I will have to suffer the rigors of submitting queries and having them rejected - or hopefully accepted. It just adds another layer to the writing process. Oh, well, why should I be any different than all the other writing grunts?

And we are missing some awful weather out East. Yippee! That always makes us feel better -to be on vacation somewhere temperate while snow and sleet batters our home town. Oh drat! I have to email someone and ask that person to clear our walks. And it might mean that we have trouble getting home. I wonder how much it would cost to drive across the country. Nah. Bad idea.

I have not written - I have not even practiced my accordion! All I have done is suffer from cold and sinus pain. (I sound like an advertisement.) Sinus infections, yuck, yuck, yuck.

So the stuff I am reading is fun and light - more Carola Dunn. I found my lost library books.



Yesterday, I catalogued a bunch of new Christmas picture books and one Hanukkah - Rosh Hodesh picture book, "Hanukkah Moon" by Debra DaCosta. I did Holly Hobbie's new Toot and Puddle book, "Let It Snow!" Hobbie's artwork is just so good.



I leave for my vacation tomorrow so I will be so busy getting things in order that I am going to sign off now.

It's over. My Nanowrimo novel-ette is over. 50,980 words. So why didn't I just go for 51,000? No idea.
As soon as it was done, I wailed to the hub, "What do I do now? I don't have anything to write about now."
He suggested editing the silly thing but I'm not ready for that. I need to print it out and get out the red pencil to deal with that. Besides as I was telling him what happened in the story I realized what a huge part conicidence played in this book. My character is smarter than I am and I don't know how to deal with that. In order to make the book work, as it was conceived, I'd have to revisit high school math courses; learn about social networking sites; figure out how substitute teachers are hired and called; and learn about mental disorders of the very intelligent.

So just writing the book was only about a tenth of the project. I'm exhausted.

So, why did I do it? Well, I DID it. I wrote through a story from beginning to end and I did not stop and I did not decide to change things - well, I did but I just changed them - and I did not tear out my hair and say, "I don't know what happens next." I just kept writing and, guess what? I figured out what could happen next.

My character's situation was with me when I wasn't typing and for the first time in a long time, I felt like a writer.

I realized just how much I enjoy the creative process.

I have the skeleton of a possible teen novel if I decide to use it.

I have hope that the fifteen or more books I have started may actually get written.

I had fun.

Now, I have to come up with a BookLady article for the end of December. I think I did resolutions last year so what should I do next month? I already did gift books. The article appears the week after Christmas.

Any ideas, oh phantom possible readers of these posts?

Well, I'm 43000 words into my NaNoWriMo novelette and I don't know where to go next. There are dozens of things I should be doing right now - including adding onto said novelette and instead I am here writing this blog.
I started a Jo Dereske novel last night and realized I'd rather be writing than reading. Why has it taken me this long to come to this insight? I LOVE reading but I like the creative process more. Even the accordion isn't bringing me as much satisfaction as writing.
Except for now, when I have finished the climax and don't know where to go next.
I have 7000 words, more or less, to tie up the lo0se ends, explain my antagonist's rationale, help my protagonist deal with what has happened to her and provide a hopeful ending. I didn't intend to write a "problem" novel. I dislike problem novels and yet I have found this novelette so much easier to write than something lighter and funnier. So what does that say about my sense of humor?
Well, I have until Friday at midnight to finish this thing. I WILL do it. I will also exercise, count calories and maintain a positive attitude. Right!

Oliver Sachs has a new book out, Musicophilia. His books deal with strange neurological conditions, usually. But this book deals with music and the effect it has on normal, and probably abnormal, people's brains. I am listening to music right now because I am cataloguing the enormous backlog of books from one of our major book jobbers. (They had a problem, I think.) Whenever I choose to listen to music, I am amazed at the effect it has on my mood. I can feel my heart beat differently. I feel more peaceful, or more energized, depending on what I am listening to. Other sounds can have similar effects but with music the change is instantaneous and more pronounced.
I haven't read Musicophilia. I bought the book for my musician neuro-science obsessed son. I have time before the holidays. Maybe I'll give him a slightly used copy of the book.
PS: 31000 words for Nanowrimo. Hey, I might even do it this year!

Ahh, autumn. I just took a walk around the drive here at the library. The shadows are long; the leaves are sparser on the trees. The grass is golden in the late afternoon sun. It makes me melancholy even as I am awed by the beauty.
Then I came inside and as I sat working I thought of my husband's mother who died this past spring and I missed her with an ache that was painful and at the same time beautiful. I want to take the time to feel that grief. I want time to watch the shadows overcome the sunlight. I want to see the sky turn flame-colored and then gradually dark, dark blue dotted with stars.
I want to sit still for an entire autumn day just watching the light and the sky change, the trees move, the grass lie flat against the earth. Ahhhh, autumn.

NaNoWriMo started already and I haven't written a single word. Not one word. How am I going to fit that in with everything else I have to do in the next two weeks? Like the Craft Fair, hmm, uhhh? And Nicolas's birthday celebration and what do you buy a fifteen year old for his birthday???? and my assistant is leaving for another week and I have 7 storytimes AND 3 nursery school tours that week. AAAAAGGGHHH. I don't even have an idea for a novel and why did I sign up for this silly thing anyway? I'm reading Brad Meltzer.s "Book of Fate" by the way. It is a "Davinci Code" by someone who can actually write and it concerns the Masons instead of the Catholic Church and takes place in and around D.C. It's pretty exciting because I KNOW the narrator has been marked for extermination by this crazy ex-marine - sort of like the albino monk in DaVinci - and of course the narrator is going to walk right into it any page now. But enough. If you don't hear from me this month, just refer back to the first sentence of this post. BYE.