Stop me. Now.

I'm thinking of selling my muse on Ebay. She's working overtime and I do not have time to play right now.

Have you ever been bodyslammed by the muse by reading someone else's blog post?

I have--no, did. Today, in fact.

I was perusing Lori Perkin's new blog to get a feel for the kinds of stories Ravenous Romance is looking for. There was a brief discussion of Christmas stories and how they do--or don't--sell.

As I was leaving my comment, I dropped an example to support my point. And damn. Now I want to go write it.

But let's be realistic. Is it happening before the holidays? Not bloody likely LOL. I've never written anything less than thirty thousand words in my life. And, I have two stories due to my current editor by Oct. 15.

Do I need to remind myself that Kiss of the Cerberus will be done by Dec. 31 if I have to sell my first born to do it?

So, I'm tucking that idea into the file for next year. :) No, really I am.

(Don't you dare twist my arm, Layla!)

What about you? Have you ever been broadsided by the muse at the most inopportune moment?

How do you handle it? Because this is happening to me with alarming regularity.

Our Own Leah is bloggin' at Romance Bandits Today

Wild woman and bookseller Deb Meredith of Leah's literary Lair is blogging over at Romance Bandits today. She's giving away an awesome prize for those who comment, so go check it out!

So Many Stories, So Little Time

I have this first draft. It's almost done, but the manuscript is nowhere near finished. A nice, long visit with my delete key looms in front of me. There are storylines to polish, scenes to revise and prose to smooth over. And let's face it. This is the part of creation where that once perfect idea begins to show the warts on its butt.

This is the part of the process when I'm most likely to sneak off and have a sordid little fling with a new idea.

Maybe it's because I have ADHD. No, really, I do.

I'm not sure if that's a good enough excuse for the fact that I'm having a hard time finishing the projects I start. It' s just that I'm the queen of dog-peed-on-my-homework-ism. And trust me when I say I never met an idea I didn't like. I have a hard drive full of disjointed scenes to prove it.

But can really I blame ADHD for that? Or is there some more obscure process at work here?

I'm aslo a Meyer's Briggs personality type INFP (a point shy of ENFP, I'm told). That means I'm an intuitive touchy feely sort of person with a tendency toward grandiose ideas and reclusivness. Ha, a writer if there ever was one! Unless, of course, you feed me a shot of Jose. Me + Jose = extrovert unchained.

Even a test that maps my mental landscape in an effort to explain why I flit around from creative project to project looking for the right one to fall in love with isn't going to solve my problem. I'm annoyed by my reluctance to find my way to "the end" more often than I do.

I imagine I could come up with a bevy of convincing reasons why I should avoid opening my (heinous) almost-to-the-end first draft today and plod through to the ultimately not-so-grand finale. Logically, I know first drafts are supposed to suck. Really they are. But then, when have I ever been a fan of logic?

I'm also a perfectionist. Every word, every nuance, every pause, beat, even the amount of white space on the page can consume hours, days of my time. And you know what? That part of writing is my favorite part.

Now that I'm on dueling deadlines, you know what? I can't afford to do that. But oh, how I want to.

You see, I have this brilliant idea. Honest I do. My brain is a churning cesspool of ah-ha moments. And I can't turn them off. So what to do? Get today's idea down before its gone forever? Or jot down a note that might or might not capture the essence of the panoramic scene that knocked my muse into overdrive?

Chances are, I'm not the only writer who suffers from this. So I'm turning to my peers for advice. How do you all manage it? How many of you also struggle to get to "the end" before going off in chase of the next bright, shiny, newborn idea?

My only answer today was to write the scene spinning in my head and stick it in a file on my hard drive called "plot thoughts". It may never see the light again, so I'm posting it here to commit myself to going back to it when my current two projects are turned in to their respective destinations.

Hopefully when time and deadlines allow, I can return to the scene and recapture the patina of brilliance that made the idea seem so bright and shiny in the first place.

~

Purdy is all the time running away.

The police have brought him home. Again.

Purdy’s mom—Rita?—yawns as she emerges onto her front porch. She shivers against the November chill, and clutches her yellow bathrobe around her shoulders. She looks every bit as worn as the peeling paint on the door that frames her.

Even from my own front stoop across the street, I can see that Rita’s robe covers the same stained sweatpants that I’ve seen her wearing for the last week. A signal that her husband—Ray Don?— has bolted.

Again.

Rita is already running down the porch steps, apologizing for her son’s behavior before the sheriff can step out of the cruiser. "I'm sorry. He found the key. It won’t happen again, Sheriff. I swear to God it won’t."

But it will. Happen. Purdy is forever finding the deadbolt key and letting himself out. Quite a feat of opportunism for a boy everyone insists is too retarded to wipe his own ass.

Purdy’s tousled head emerges from the back seat of the Sheriff's cruiser. His bare feet and goose-pimpled legs peek out from underneath the heavy woolen blanket wrapped around him.

Even from where I stand, I can see that Purdy is grinning.

Only when the boy smiles do I remember that he is quite the handsome lad, a young Brad Pitt. Until his face lights up with laughter, it never occurs to me to acknowledge that somewhere inside of Purdy lurks a teenaged boy. Except for when the police have brought him home from one of his many misadventures. You see, running away animates Purdy.

For a while.

“Arrhhh, Arhhh.” Purdy is mimicking the siren shrieks when he spies his mother

A scowl carves a trio of hash marks between Rita’s brows as her hands settle onto her hips.

“Purdy is a good siren! Arrhhh.”

Rita is not immune to her son’s enthusiam. Her scowl softens, just enough to tell me that she loves the boy, in spite of the difficulties involved in keeping him safely at home.

"Found him up top the 103 tower this time,” the Sheriff says as he inserts a key into the cuffs which bind Purdy’s wrists together. “He was swinging from the scaffolding up top. Naked.”

“His clothing?” Rita asks.

“Lord only knows.”

With a metallic click, Purdy’s hands are free. He holds them in front of his face, twisting and turning them, this way and that, as if he had just sprouted them anew.

Rita hugs Purdy hard and then grabs him by his shoulders. She clasps his jawbone in her hand and forces his chin up so that he must look at her. "You know what's going to happen, Purdy? Do you? You're going to end up dead, that's what. Do you hear me, Purdy? Dead.

Tears course down her hollowed out face as she bats the boy around his ears. Purdy. You. Have. To. Stop. This.”

"Stop. Dis." Purdy says. His head bobs an exaggerated nod as his fingertips search the rising welts on his cheek. But it’s clear that the lanky teen's body is not of a mind to heed the words his lips strain to mimic. Instead, he wrenches from his mother’s grasp and races back to the cruiser.

Long before Chief Higgins can catch up, Purdy has made his way inside the vehicle and sounded the siren. Twice, always twice.

“He’s only going to get bigger,” the sheriff says as he hauls Purdy back to Rita. “Then what?”

“I. Don’t. Know.”

“I’m going to have to take him in next time. Let juvi deal with him.”

Purdy drops the blanket. He extends his arms horizontally, an airplane. “Zoooooom!” He circles wide around the barren oak tree, then flees into the dim shelter of his home.

There he will remain. Until the next time Rita drops her guard.
“He won’t run. I swear it," Rita rasps as she backs toward the house. "I’ll change the locks tonight.”

“He’s a teenager. With urges.”

“Purdy would never hurt anyone!”

Purdy’s laughter emerges from somewhere inside. Where he will remain with his mother. Until the next time.

Retarded, they say. “Tsk, tsk, such a waste, that Purdy Owens.”

So they say.
~
I am sitting in my designated kitchen chair across from my husband, Lou, just as I have for every other morning over the last twenty-eight years. While Lou feasts on his Thursday usual (minute steak and two eggs, over easy), my index finger travels the rim of the yellow mug that I first claimed as mine more years ago than I care to count.

Only today, my mug is different. The rim is chipped. As my finger navigates the familiar trail of the time-smoothed ceramic, its usual path is interrupted by a jagged pit. Wear of the years. Time changes everything.
The sensation is not unpleasant. In fact, I rather like it.

“Sad about Purdy, don’t you think?” I say to Lou.

Lou’s takes a sip of his coffee (his mug is blue and remains un-chipped) and then looks up at me, his face full of question. “Who?”

“Purdy.”

Lou’s face remains blank. He takes another sip.

“You know Purdy. Owens. The boy from across the street. The cops brought him home. Again.

“Oh, the retard,” Lou says. He returns to slicing his steak.

“I was just wondering”….

“About Purvis?”

“Purdy”.

“Whatever.” Lou’s dark brows draw together, revealing his impatience. He takes the last bite of his steak.
I know he will chew it exactly twenty times. Then he will stack his cup and silverware on the plate and carry it to the sink.

“What if Purdy’s not really running away?”

Lou looked at me like as if boogers run unchecked from my nose. "Not running away? What else would you call it?”

"I don't know.” My finger catches on the chip. “Maybe he’s running to?

“To?”

“Instead of away?"

“Does it make a difference? The boy's a half wit.”

“I just worry. About him. About his mom. Rita, I think. So I was just wondering.”

“You need something to worry about?” Lou said, as he stacked his cup onto his plate. Lou rose. “Tell me what you’re going to do with that goddamn Winnabego.

“My Winnabego isn't yours to worry about.”

Lou slammed his dishes into the sink. “Then I guess you'll be paying the winnings tax on it. Not to mention the insurance. Do you know how much your windfall is going to cost me?”

Lou and I have stood at this same impasse since the announcement came that I’d broken the international sales record with New Day Cosmetics. For that honor, I’d won the coveted pink Winnabego, fully outfitted with every conceivable luxury.

Instead of congratulating me on my hard work, or dreaming along with me of all the wonderful places that Winnebago might carry us, Lou had come up with a thousand reasons why I should sell it.

And logically, I suppose he’s right. Nobody needs a pink Winnebago. “Do you think maybe Purdy just needs to get out more?”

Lou slams his dishes into the sink. “Do I even know you?”

I turned to the sink to rinse the remnants of egg yolk from his plate. I’m what’s left of the woman you used to fuck on this same counter three times a day.

“No, Lou, you don’t know me. Not anymore.” I turn away from the sink, hungry for his response.

But he’s already gone.

Show me the Heartbreak, Baby!

Emotions. In the end, isn't that what grabs us in a fine piece of literature? I know that for me, that moment of OMG, I know just how this character feels is what allows me to suspend disbelief and live another life through the author's words. It's what keeps me turning the pages until the wee hours of the morning.

And I want to be able to do that, damn it!

Whether I'm writing what I actually get paid for (naughty romance), or the more sophisticated pieces I'd like to get paid for, I want to feel a oneness with my characters. But as a writer, I've learned that recreating emotional reality on the pages is far more than a simple regurgitation of events. A single gesture can mean the difference between whether a scene works, or doesn't. Less is truly more. But you know what? Easier said than done.

Edit Torrent is one of my favorite editing blogs and how to create moving depictions of emotion in writing is the topic of conversation this week. Check it out.

Until then, I'll share an excerpt of a novel that's been bubbling for a few months. I'm sharing this passage because it has challenged me, and is still challenging me.

Emotion. Easier said than done.

What are your tricks and tips for drawing your reader into your character's reality? How do you know when you've got a scene that will make your reader care enough to turn the page?

~

Willow The Wisp, A novel, excerpt

She steps into the downstairs office where their son has spent the last three days watching the opening credits to One Hundred and One Dalmations, over and over again.

Interrupt the flow, and there'll be hell to pay later. So barring the presence of blood or fire, the credits roll, twenty-four seven.

They live hostage to a fifty-seven pound dictator

“What are you crying about now?” Byron asks.

It’s not her husband's question that breaks her heart. It’s the delivery that does the deed, the impatient clip of consonants.

She wants to tell him that she's in mourning, but her tongue sits like stone in the well of her mouth.

She can taste the bitter heat of wasabi and soy sauce that another woman will kiss from his lips tonight, ignorant of the circumstances that drove him to escape in her arms.

She wants to tell him what she knows. But even if the words did break free, what difference would it make? Loving their son back to life, caring for him had consumed the last remnant of the woman Byron fell in love with twelve years ago.

Where had the girl who once righted her lover's world with a plate of strawberry pancakes gone?

When the @#$* words just won't come...

A proper belle
does not dismiss as pathological
the voices
within

Rather,
she calls out their names,
and bids them join her
in tea.

She plies them with juleps.

Once acknowledged,
gracious ghosts
of imagination
gift in kind
with whispers of secrets
and scandals
translated
to the tongue
of story.

~
Do you ever find yourself stuck? I have. And when I get that way, I turn to poetry to ply my muse into compliance. What techniques do you use to get past those miserably dry spells? I really want to know.