Saturday Kilt

Denton shrugged. "Bran can be difficult at times."

She nodded with sympathy. "Men. Can't live with them, can't bury them under the porch. What's the matter? Maybe I can impart you my wisdom."

"Aren't you single?"

"At the moment, but I date. Plenty enough. Trust me, I know men."

Denton opened his mouth, but he immediately realized he couldn't breath a word of Peter or the frog business. Joy knew only so much about Bran's past and talents, and this secret wasn't Denton's to share. So he course-corrected. "What do you think of kilts?"

"On men?"

"Of course."

She grinned. "They are hawt. More than shorts. I'm not sure why. Probably because they make your imagination run wild wondering what's under, and hoping for a stray gust of wind. It must be like in the old times when women were so bundled up a glimpse of an ankle drove men crazy. I bet Gerard Butler in a kilt is ten times sexier than Gerard Butler naked."

Denton hadn't expected such a thorough reply. "You have paid some thought to this before, haven't you?"

(Dead Man and the Army of Frogs)

Random Update

I have had health and other issues lately and my mood took a nose dive. Let me just say, anxiety attacks are the suck. Everyone reacts differently to crisis. Some people share every little detail of their problems. I withdraw. I suspect the first approach is healthier, but I am who I am. I'm starting to feel better now, but I'm still wobbly. Fuck it.

The MS of Secrets and Charms is off to my editor. Remember Jem's friend, Olly, from Secrets and Ink? Well, it's his story. There are more Hollywood shenanigans, romance, and mystery. Bran's mother (Dead Man books), Layla makes a guest appearance.

I also wrote a holiday-ish short story, but it still needs some edits. I put aside for now.

Dead Man and the Army of Frogs have been edited, formatted, and ready for the August 5 release.

I joined twitter at last, but I have to say the whole thing befuddles me. Lots of links to reviews, promo, and not particularly exciting status updates. And I have no idea about the etiquette. If someone follows me, am I supposed to follow them back? What if I don't want to?

On the home front: my balcony garden is a mixed success. The available sun is not enough for most plants I have. However, the parsley and cat grass are doing fine, and the Boston fern is very happy. At fall I'll have to divide it up and replant it.

My neighbor has sunflowers growing between the curb and sidewalk in front of her house. They look pretty cool.

Status Update

Dead Man and the Army of Frogs is off to my beloved beta readers, and I'm busy doing preproduction for my next book. So far I've written 1,800 words of plot outline and it's not even the detailed one. The story is a sort-of-mystery, as mine often are, and what I've figured out is that instead of what will happen in the narrative, the first outline should contain what happens everywhere, including stuff my protagonists are not privy to. Put it in different terms, this is a chronological, omniscient description of events. The next step is to distill it into a bullet point list of events from the POV if my narrator(s).

I like this phase—it's exciting, and a little scary, but mostly all potential. I haven't always done it, but now I find it exceptionally useful. For example, giving names to all my characters even before starting the outline helps me to flesh them out. This is also the time I start doing research. I'm very visual and tend to look for a pictorial reference for every little thing that appears in my story, even if it's for one line.

A chunk of the book is to take place in a two bedroom Craftsman house in Silver Lake, so I drove around there to scout, then spent an hour on Google searching for photos of Craftsman homes. I even downloaded and printed a floor plan—it'll help me to visualize the scenes.

I grabbed another floor plan too, even though the place will probably only appear in one scene. It's a bungalow belonging to Mme Layla, aka Layla Maurell. Yeah, she's Bran's mom from the Dead Man books. :) I like having supporting characters walking from one book to another. This time I'm also planning guest appearances by Detective Lipkin from Dead in L.A. and Sandy Baker from Hanging Loose. Well, that's the plan. You know never know what actually happens once you start writing.

Weather Report

Southern California doesn't have a winter. That part of the year can resemble spring or fall, or even summer, but never winter. This year while several feet of snow covered most of the country we had eighty-plus degree temperatures, sunny skies, and wildfires. The rain arrived at last, and while it won't be enough to end our epic drought, it's better than nothing.

Rain does strange things to L.A. Needless to say, many people forget how to drive, but that's not all. My neighborhood doesn't have storm drains. I recall someone telling me the streets all slant toward the L.A. River and rainwater eventually finds its way there. I have no idea if this is true, but whenever it's raining the streets turn into canals. Especially the intersections. There's much splashing. You don't want to be a pedestrian around here, trust me.

I like the near-constant sunshine—it keeps me sane—but it's nice to have something else for a change. Gloomy weather inspires a cozy melancholy. My plan for the weekend is to stay inside, drink copious amounts of tea and cocoa, and edit. It would be nice to have the second draft of Dead Man and the Army of Frogs done by Monday.