No Such Thing as Small Writing

I finished writing the Greeley girls scene Tuesday night and like it very much.

Last night, I attended Shelley Hitz's webinar on creating and using Facebook fan pages. She showed us how to use the Notes and Discussions features to engage readers. She talked about the importance of having a tagline for yourself on your fan page and told us the tagline should be comprised of keywords so you come up in Internet searches. Our homework is to write our taglines. I intend to come up with several; I'll ask you guys which one you like best.

I also got Aunt Téa's Addiction accepted for publication at Smashwords, by which I mean that it was vetted and found not to be in violation of their style guide. BUT -- they're out of free ISBNs and without an ISBN, the story won't be available on Nooks, iPads, and Sony devices. A new batch of free ISBNs are expected to be available today. I'm afraid there will be a run on those suckers and I'll miss out. I'm going to be checking Smashwords' Update page obsessively today.

Last night I wrote the description blurb for my next published story, He Dreams in Yellow. But I'm concerned it contains a spoiler. The story is more stylish than shocking (as my other stories tend to be). Malcom walks around a lot and is visited by friends. Not very shocking, eh? How do you make a blurb out of that? But the shocking horror part comes later and I have to be careful or my blurb will give it away. I'm awful at small writing like bios, blurbs, taglines, and story titles. It's like by the time I get to that, my head is too worn out to think. John Urbancik gave me the title to He Dreams in Yellow. I couldn't think of a title. When he did, I was like, "Love it. Done."

One Foot Up

Last night, I started writing and it was tough going, at first. I played solitaire, listened to music, and browsed through blogs about 18th century fashion. Then a line of dialogue occurred, taking me in a direction I hadn't anticipated. The next thing I knew, I had a good couple of paragraphs of dialogue that showed Julian's confusion and difficulty accepting the unreal new reality that's in his face. "What does she want?" he asked Anika about Malinde. "Blood," Anika said. "Is that all?" he demanded. "What is there to gain by killing me?" He can't fathom violence for any other goal but power. His question foreshadows the end of the third novel. So -- yay, brain! Thanks for throwing me a curve ball from out of the dark reaches. Also, last night I started this scene from Julian's bedroom, rewriting it from its earlier setting of the drawing room. Now, Julian is in bed, in total disarray, when Anika comes in. As the scene unfolds, Julian is being groomed and dressed. Gilbert comes in half way through this and has a wild, scared conversation with Julian, which Julian handles with aplomb, having been revived by medical attention and grooming. By the time the mayor arrives, Julian is completely dressed and sitting in the drawing room, impeccable and perfectly in control. Remember, yesterday I didn't know how I would pull Julian out of his vulnerability. I'm going to do it by dressing him. It'll happen physically as it's happening mentally. Cool, huh? Also, I can bring in the food shortages brought on by the apparently dead epidemic. Anika will have very little garlic for Julian and when he asks why she'll tell him there's very little of anything to buy in town because healthy farmers aren't coming to Charleston and Charleston has quarantined the low country plantations, which means food isn't coming in. She can't hang garlic around the windows and doors. They have to eat it.

So, I wouldn't say I'm over the hump, but I have one foot up.