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Monthly archive July 2005

Busy Day Planned

Submitted by jlpowers on Fri, 07/29/2005 - 8:11am

Yesterday, I brainstormed with my friend and pinned down the one area that I knew I had a problem and in the process discovered a couple more problems and interestingly enough, their solutions will really make things work better in the next book. I've worried about the Carlisle/Linda book how I was going to rationalize Carlisle doing the stuff he's doing because just on the surface of things it doesn't make sense for him to be that extreme about it... but now it does! Yah! :-)

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Brainstorming

Submitted by jlpowers on Thu, 07/28/2005 - 7:43am

Yesterday in the midst of doing a bunch of other things, I realized that part of my problem revising the 'Happy Medium' book is that I'm not sure of the logic/ circumstances/ history around the Carlisle/ Harland part of the story. <sigh> You'd think that I'd have figured that out a long time ago. Well, I thought I had, but then 7/8 of the way through the last revision I changed Harland's motivation for doing what he was doing. Which was great... the new one is a much better and more intriguing motivation, and I thought I'd justified it... but yesterday I realized I had more work to do. I'm not convinced of the logic flow in the last 1/2 of the book because that hinges on Harland's motivations. Ah! and <sigh> at the same time. So this morning, while kids are still asleep, I brainstorm.

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What is a Romance?

Submitted by jlpowers on Sun, 07/24/2005 - 12:10pm

I was over visiting Paperback Writer's blog this morning, checking out reactions to my very first comment on anybody's blog, and one very nice gal had responded to the comment I made, and in my response to her I wrote something that to me was profound:

For me, there are three promises the author/publisher makes to me when they put a book on the romance shelf: 1) A good romantic story, 2) A promise that's been around as long as the genre for a happily-ever-after ending and 3) In the last 5-10 years the genre has changed so the current promise is that the man doesn't force himself on the woman (physically or mentally).

This is important to me, because I disliked all the examples I saw of RWA's attempt to define "romance", and at the same time I think a definition of "romance" is needed because I keep running into books on the romance shelf that aren't romances.

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Beginnings...

Submitted by jlpowers on Fri, 07/22/2005 - 8:45am

Was cleaning out stuff on my computer and snooping around some old stuff and discovered the beginnings of two more stories (one a novella, the other a novel) and just for the fun of it sat down and read them. Damn, they were good! :-) Sure, I'd change some stuff since they were written almost two years ago and I've learned a lot since then, but all things considered they were good.

But then I started thinking about them, and with the other two novels I have sitting on my plate right now, and why I had stopped where I stopped with each of them. Each of the four are between 7-8,000 words... how terribly consistent. :-) And I stopped with each because I didn't know where to go next. This morning in the shower I realized that I stopped at the point that marks the end-of-the beginning and beginning-of-the-middle. Again, how terribly consistent.

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More Notes

Submitted by jlpowers on Wed, 07/20/2005 - 9:21am

I hadn't realized how many notes for the various books I'd accumulated, many more than I thought... maybe this hasn't been such a wasted summer afterall. :-) So, still typing stuff in, and I'll get back to it.

Teenage Son Stupidity

Submitted by jlpowers on Tue, 07/19/2005 - 10:20am
I'm too angry to do any writing today, even though I suddenly have the time. Found out yesterday that #2-son is failing his summer-school geometry class and barely getting a D in his english class. I was so ticked yesterday that I told him that he was done. I wasn't going to spend my day carting him back and forth for him to only fail when it was done. Sure, if he turned his attitude around 180-degrees and caught up on all the missed homework, he could come out of the class with a B... but the chance of that happening are non-existent, so I have better things to do with my time than drive him around. So, he can walk to his english class if he feels like it otherwise he spends an extra semester in high school... his call... I'm tired of beating my head against a teenage brick wall.
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Back to Work

Submitted by jlpowers on Mon, 07/18/2005 - 8:38am

Family is gone and things are back to as normal as they ever get, which is good. As I drove #2-son to summer-school this morning, I was thinking about the mountain on my desk, glanced at the newest Harry Potter book sitting on my kid's lap and remembered a comment that JK Rowling made during an interview a bunch of years ago... that she had file folders of story-notes on scraps of paper and napkins... I guess I don't feel so bad. So today, since I can't write with four kids home, I can coalesce all my scraps of paper and bits of napkin notes into some semblance of order. Which will clean off my desk, and start getting the world-building solidified for the next two books.

Family Visiting

Submitted by jlpowers on Sat, 07/16/2005 - 10:50am

I love to have my family visit, but this visit reminded me of a line in a Tom Chapin song my kids loved when they were little: "I love you see your cousins come, I love to see them go". My youngest brother, wife, mother-in-law, and three kids 6-and-under... I'd forgotten what chaos that was. One of the times I was up in my room hiding from them, it occurred to me that I had four kids 7-and-under... whew! How did I do it? I love them all, I had a great time with them while they were here, and I was really glad to see them go.

And this weekend another brother is up visiting. He had a business trip about 3-hours south of there and rented a car and drove up to spend the weekend with us. It's his first visit, and I'm thrilled that he's here, but it meant that the kids wanted to stay home this weekend instead of going to their father's, which means I've had them four weekends in a row, and I'm going absolutely insane!

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Wilder Week

Submitted by jlpowers on Mon, 07/11/2005 - 7:26am

I thought the week described in the last post was going to be the wildest one of the summer... well... isn't there something about best laid plans? Tuesday my father called and asked if I'd heard from my youngest brother (I've got three little brothers that are all a foot taller than me)... Noooo, I cautiously answered, I hadn't heard from said brother. Oh... well... father hesitates then continues, my little brother, wife, three kids under 7, and mother-in-law were planning on spending a couple days at my house either yesterday (if they drive straight through) or today (if they stop for the night). Oh, REALLY??!! It's not that I mind that my family visits... in fact I'm tickled to pieces. The problem is that I had two bedrooms full of furniture in the hallway and the bedrooms they belonged in were in the midst of plaster-patching. So....

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