Check out my new blog at lisa-pulliam.blogspot.com.

Great example of making use of what you got, gotta love it

I feel the need to share some of the bazillion thoughts running through my head. It just feels therapeutic to say them out loud (or type in a LiveJournal) so I can move on.

1) Writing is hard. Don't get me wrong, I love it, but man can it be hard. You have to make sure it's interesting with believable characters. It has to be original, but something that the reader can relate to. Since my books are a series, I have to make some plot points spread out so people would want to read the other books.

2) I need an agent. I don't know why I care at this point since my manuscript isn't finished. But I know that it is a step to eventually take and when it comes to something I want, I'm not always patient.

3) I wish there were 30 hours in a day. I would devote 3 of those to sleep and 3 to writing. Maybe 2:4 - if I'm feeling motivated. I would get things done a lot faster that way.

4) I'm scared shitless of revisions. I think that's why I'm moving a bit slower at the writing - I know I'm going to end up changing it all anyway. At least I'm not editing as I go, I would never finish a book that way.

5) What if I can't do this? What if I have immersed myself into the writing world and community as much as I possibly could and as fast as I could and it doesn't work? What if I spend hundreds and hundreds of hours writing, editing, shopping for agents and publishers, and it doesn't ever sell and I resort to self-publishing. What if I fail? But then I think, I've wanted to be a novelist since I was very young. I would rather fail than never try and wonder if I could do it.

6) When I finish my manuscript, I think I will print it on multiple colors of paper and use it as wallpaper. That will be my writing room. Yes, that sounds like a glorious idea.

7) Will my husband be angry if I plaster our walls with my manuscript?

8) I wonder if the RT conference is worth the money and vacation time. It seems great on paper and from what I hear, but that's a big financial committment.

9) I hope my vampire world is creative enough to be interesting and liked by people. I hope it's not too much like anyone else's. Reading vampire romance makes it difficult to be original, but it helps with ideas and seeing how much can be done. Catch-22.

10) It's hard to focus on one manuscript when another idea is nagging at me. Maybe I should just outline the books in my head and move on.

End of rant. I don't feel any less clouded. Maybe it takes time. But now I can move on to working on my manuscript so that I actually have the right to be freaking out. Right now I'm simply a poser.

Last weekend I went on a writing retreat with the Romance Writers of America chapter I belong to. I had a lot of fun, even with the storm Friday night. A storm on the Oregon coast in the winter has always been one of my favorite things. Growing up I used to go with my family to stay in a hotel on the ocean for a weekend in the winter, hoping for a storm. There's something relaxing about it.

Well, this one wasn't so relaxing. The house was practically on the sand, only about 10 feet of sea grass separated us from the beach. The wind was up to 80 miles an hour, according to the news reports after the storm. There were reports of swells off the coast and a chance for flooding, which would have been bad news for the basement of the house and our cars. The front of the house came to a point, like a beak, and was almost all windows. The glass was bending back and forth with the strong wind. The logical side of me knew they were built to withstand that, but seeing the reflection of the lamps moving back and forth in the glass was unnerving. The wind howled all night long. I don't think any of us slept more than an hour or two. I kept waking up and feeling the house shaking under the wind. But it was fun. There's something thrilling about being scared of a storm that is out of your control.

The writing side of the trip was great too. It was very beneficial talking to people who have been writing romance for a while, and some published, to hear what they had to say. We did something called story magic where we all brought our story ideas. Then we sat together and brainstormed the inciting incident, long range goal, short range goal, relationship barrier, black moment, reliazation and character flaw for both the hero and heroine. It is much easier to write once you have the main points and themes outline like that. I also got a lot of great ideas with the ladies for my book series. Now I just have to write them.

I know the main events that will happen in all of the books and the sub plots, but I need to develop the hero and heroine more and why they are interested in each other. I also need to think of some ways to make my vampires unique compared to others that are in books.

All in all it was definitely worth the weekend and I enjoyed getting to know these lovely ladies.

Will Farrell is a gem

(thanks for posting dragonrose)

As neccessary. You scored 30% Cold and 71% Level-Headed!

If threatned, you will respond with equivalent force, and most likely have the nerves to carry you through the act.

My test tracked 2 variables How you compared to other people your age and gender: You scored higher than 21% on Cold You scored higher than 86% on Level-Headed

Link: The Can You Kill a Man? Test written by notmarkflynn on Ok Cupid, home of the 32-Type Dating Test

Things are going well on the writing front. My biggest challenge right now is pulling my nose out of other people's books and work on my own. It's hard to stop reading though because with each book I read, I feel like it makes me a stronger writer. If that makes any sense.

This weekend I'm going on a beach retreat with the Mid-Willamette Valley RWA. I'm looking forward to it. I think we'll be doing something called a story board and we'll all pitch in brainstorming for everyone's manuscripts. I could use a few ideas to keep the ball rolling.

I also busted out The Plot Doctor workbook. I used it when I did NaNoWriMo. It will probably help me again now that I'm redoing the NaNo MS. I highly recommend this workbook to anyone who's a plotter and outliner before doing a lot of writing. There are some great worksheets in there to get the juices rolling for building characters, scenes and conflict.

Hopefully I'll come back from the beach on Sunday with my whole novel, maybe part of the series, fully outlined and planned out. Fingers crossed! All I need is my writing binder and Alphasmart 3000 baby! Oh yeah, and clean underwear.

I had never planned to read these books. I was reading the author roster for a series of vampire-themed workshops at the upcoming Romantic Times convention (that I hope to go to) and decided that maybe I would get more out of the workshops if I read the books by the presenting authors.

I'm very glad I made that decision because I love this series. The direction that many books take that vampirism is legal now is very interesting and appealing to me. It was something I hadn't really thought of before and it has opened a whole new group of ideas to me.

Charlaine Harris has done a fantastic job with the relationships, especially balancing them. If someone was telling me that a series of books existed where the heroine bounces back and forth between several boyfriends, I would have thought the heroine was a slut and I wouldn't want to read the book. But Sookie doesn't come off like a slut at all, to me at least. She doesn't date just anyone, all the guys she has dated have been special to her. And there's only a few sex scenes, most of the time she just alludes to the fact it happened.

I also love how they are all different. Bill is the quiet guy with the silent mind that she likes. Eric is boysterous, obnoxious, but straight-forward. Alcede (sp?) is the perfect Southern boyfriend that would fit in right at home.

I keep changing my mind of which guy I hope she ends up with. It's a toss-up between Alcede and Eric with amnesia. I'm not a big fan of Bill, I mean I like it when he's in the story but I hope she doesn't end up with him. Oh yeah, or Sam. He's cool too.

Charlaine has also done a great job with believability. These books are full of supernatural stuff, but I buy all of it. I can imagine living in this world. She does well in tying up loose ends and things stay consistend throughout the series, like Sookie's gift.

All in all a great series and I recommend it! You may think I'm crazy because all these book reviews are positive ones, but since I began reading romances, I haven't found one I haven't liked. I know the day will come, but I'm enjoying the streak so far.

Coming soon: Mary Janice Davidson's Undead series and Michelle Rowan's Bitten & Smitten.

I've decided to try something useful with my journal, reviewing the books that have eaten my life for the past month or two. You may not want to read these if you are the type who don't want to know anything about the books before you read them. Those like me who read the last chapter of a book before beginning it, I encourage you to read on.

I'll start with the Anita Blake series by Laurell K. Hamilton. I'm up to Obsidian Butterfly. Thanks to the Science Fiction Book Club, I've got all the books through Narcissus In Chains in four nifty volumes. This will seem scattered and random because I'll be talking about 10 books or so, but it's my journal and I'll do what I want to. :-)

The more I read the series, the more I grow fond of it. I've enjoyed all of the books, but it began as a like and is now a love. LKH has done a great job with the characters. I find myself thinking about things that could or have happened in the series and saying "Jean Claude wouldn't do that" or "Richard wouln't say that." But how the hell would I know? I'm not the author. Wrong. LKH is so strong with her characterization that the reader can easily get to know the characters and imagine what they would do.

I would like to say that I love Jean Claude - his ego, his sexiness, his control, everything. I hope Anita ends up with him. I like Richard, but he seems like such a pansy-ass sometimes. Part of me hopes he finds a new lupa and leaves Anita alone, but I don't want her to lose connection with the pack.

Some of my favorite scenes have been Anita's interaction with the weres, especially in the couple of books before Incubus Dreams. It shows the growth within herself and trust of others. I really like her recent interactions with Jason.

I'm only about 100 pages into Obsidian Butterfly, just past Edward admitting that he has feelings for the family he's living with. I'm thrilled that LKH did an Edward book. Of course I had to read the last few pages before beginning the book and I am pleased.

She has done a fantastic job building Edward as a character. I love him, I think he's my favorite. He's so predictible in a I'm-so-scared-I'm-going-to-shit-my-pants sort of way. I am rather anxious to see who Anita bangs in this book, I'm thinking it's the detective.

I've read on message boards that Anita starts sleeping with many more men in later books. I'm not sure how I feel about that. I guess I'll see when I read them. But I think she should choose Jean Claude.

You may want to know why I learn what happens in a series before I finish it - well, I don't like surprises. I'm the same person who goes to ruinedendings.com before I see a movie that looks like it will be sad.

I'll also be sharing my thoughts on a few other series that I've read in the next couple of days. I would love to hear anyone else's thoughts on these books. Maybe if we begin a dialogue about books I'll feel smart. :-)