in the interests of better blogging (or how i find my characters)

i enjoy blogging. i never expected to enjoy it - it smacks too much of journal-writing, and i've never kept a journal except for a few tortured months in freshman english in high school. but i enjoy blogging - i think the fact that it is at once a public venue and a private platform creates a kind of tension not unlike that which leads some people to enjoy sex in semi-public places.

so in the interests of improving my blog, i signed up for a series of (free!) emails entitled 10 Days to a Better Blog. today, at the suggestion of the instructor, i checked out her "monday motivation" post.

what i found there touched me so profoundly that i knew right away i'd been given a glimpse into a mindset so different from mine, it was like seeing a bunch of crayons in colors i never had. it was like opening a door, or the flash of a match. IMMEDIATELY i saw shapes and forms, whispered sentences, fragments of words. IMMEDIATELY this unwitting woman was slurped up in the stew, where she will churn and brew and burn until i call her forth as Someone the original person will most likely never recognize.

i look for the flashpoint, for the reaction, for the place of discomfort, of fear. but instead of turning away or pushing back, i have learned - slowly, painfully - to open to it, to allow it in.

just yesterday i had good news. my agents' representatives in spain have found an offer for the spanish language rights of one of my older titles, A Once & Future Love. it's the best of my romances, i think, and completely unexpected.

the light is growing stronger every day, the snow yesterday fell in fat wet flakes that are already melted on the driveway. there are three possible novels and one short story in some form or another simmering. the characters all seem to have settled into a kind of queue, as long as i continue to forge ahead.

and furthermore, the war must end. blessed be.