1. I am no longer sick. The Spouse seems to have caught it, though.

2. I am trying to write when I have a spare hour, like this one, so I’ll still not be so chatty here. Plus my life is as dull as it’s always been, so no news there.

3. I have 143 pages done of the current WIP. Yay! Likely heading towards 400 pps.

4. I like hockey now, thanks to HDTV and the Olympics. I cannot find a good pic of Ryan Miller, but I thought he was amazing.

5. Next weekend I might get to see the Delightful Phone Friend; seeing the Picky Vegetarian at the end of the month in Portland. SO EXCITED.

6. Still waiting to hear on a submission. Many digits crossed.

7. Okay, off to write. More later.

. . . only not here. Worked on the Evil Synopsis yesterday, and will be writing later today. I’m setting modest goals for myself, 1000 words a day, which is doable in my land.

When my life gets at all interesting, you’ll be the first to know.

I did some writing yesterday and today; here is some of it:

What was she talking on about? Oh, her kid. He should try to pay attention, but it was loud in the bar and he kept staring at her mouth to try to gauge what she was saying, which just distracted him.
She had a great mouth. Her lips were full and lush, and she bit them when she was thinking, which was starting to drive him crazy. He liked women who bit, too.

“Where in Europe is she going?” He took a sip of his drink. The bartender had given him a healthy pour, he’d better watch himself if he was going to be good for anything later on tonight.

He sure as hell hoped there’d be something later on tonight, he didn’t want to waste his time if he wasn’t going to get laid.

He coulda done that with Katharine. What made him think she was a good idea? Her ass was flat, and she had the worst taste in music. Fucking Ben Harper, wimpy hippie crap.

“All over,” she said, her hands spread in a broad gesture. “She’s not sure, she speaks a little bit of Spanish, so she was going to go to Spain for sure, and then she might just wander.”

“It sounds fun. The closest I’ve come to Spain is ‘Spanish Bombs.’”

“London Calling is the best record The Clash ever did.” She said that without a bit of hesitation, not like when she was quizzing him about why he was talking to her. Interesting.

“No way,” he said, putting his drink down. “Give ‘Em Enough Rope.” He grinned when her eyes widened in shock.’

“Are you kidding me? Sure, it’s a great record, but it’s nothing compared London Calling. Hello, ‘Guns of Brixton?’ ‘Lost In The Supermarket?’ Train In Vain?’” The last title was said in an outraged shriek that made him laugh.

“Okay, fair enough. I might give you that. So—what do you say, The Jam or the The Clash?”

She snorted. “The Jam, of course.”

“Okay, first test passed.” He thought for a minute. “Your first show?”

She rolled her eyes. “Do you really want me to admit it? That’d just show how old I am.”

“Try me.”

“Okay. When I was 16, I snuck into Echo and the Bunnymen’s first American show.”

“Good taste back then.” I bet she’ll taste good now, too, he thought.

“So what about you? What was your first show?” She raised her glass to her mouth and waited for his answer, as though challenging him. Nobody challenged him. Especially about music. He liked it. Sort of.

“Uh—”

“Lemme guess. Pearl Jam?”

“Worse.”

“Oh, geez.” Her voice rose higher. “Red Hot Chili Peppers?”

“Go lower.”

Her eyes got even wider. “Worse than the Red Hot Chili Peppers? Good thing you already bought me a drink.” She took a sip, and set the glass down.

“Smash Mouth.”

She blinked, then flung her head back and laughed. “I’m amazed you’d admit that.”

He shrugged, although he wished he felt as nonchalant inside. “Why not? I was—let’s see, I must have been about 16 too. My older brother was going, and said there’d be some girls there.”

“Did you meet any?”

He glanced at her. “No, actually. The opening band was one of those screechy art-rock bands, they were a noisier wanna be Talking Heads, and I was hooked. I went backstage and met them.”

“How was that?” She planted her chin on her hands. “Was it all you’d hoped for?”

“Sort of.” He narrowed his eyes, remembering. “The lead singer was totally fucked up, he was so drunk he could barely stand, but the other band members, especially the guitarist, was really nice. Especially to a kid. They could’ve been all kinds of snotty.”

“Although they were opening for Smash Mouth . . .” she let her voice trail off.

“Yeah. There was that.” That night was the first time he’d felt like maybe there would be more to his life than being the not-as-good younger brother of a high school football hero. Finally he knew more than Patrick. Patrick, who’d blown out his knee his senior year and was living in Braintree in Massachusetts. Selling fucking cars. With a wife he hated, and two kids he adored.

That’s enough of reminiscing, Liam, he reminded himself. He wouldn’t allow himself to reveal too much to her—to any woman. Not to mention any man.

Liking being a loner didn’t mean he had to like being alone, at least for certain activities.

He let his eyes drift over her while she took a sip from her scotch and soda.

So I have opened the Dreaded Synopsis (no longer titled the Stupid Synopsis, now it’s hateful and dreaded), and have worked through Act 1, as my sharp-eyed bud Liz Maverick said I had written. I need to pump up my hero to make him less immediately hateful, but I thought about that this morning after school drop-off, and I think I have a way to make him more likeable without removing his alphaness.

Which is to say it’s nowhere near done, but at least I am trying.

Wah.

I have successfully begun work on the synopsis. Not sure if I actually have something with this story (despite the 100+ pages–oy!), but at least I am into it.

A funny thing that I bet a lot of writers, particularly currently unpubbed ones have, is guilt over reading. Which is really, really dumb. And I have it.

I read a lot. A lot. I don’t watch much TV, I have a few spare minutes here and there, and I like reading; hence, I am usually plowing through some book or another. Yesterday, I finished two books, one was The Watchmen, which was too intense and 10 year-old intriguing to read often (he cannot WAIT to read it. And he must), and a paranormal that was a blast to go through.

And at the end of the day, I felt bad that I hadn’t written. Which, as stated before, is dumb. It’s not like the time I spent eating lunch and reading a book would have been able to be time spent writing–I eat in like 7 minutes, that’s barely enough time to open the document. Or when my son was doing homework, and I had to be in the room to make sure he didn’t meander off into doing something else. Couldn’t write then.

Still feel guilty. Stupid.

And here’s Richard in his ghastly shirt (for Kwana, who asked, and others who want to be horrified):

Have I mentioned the Synopsis From Hell?

Well.

The Alpha Sparkle Dog read pages from the current Work in Progress (which implies that it’s in progress, which is a crock according to my own work habits), and said, gently, that perhaps a synopsis would be useful.

At which point–and this was about a month ago–I froze in terror.

I can’t write a synopsis. But I have to. Irresistible Force, meet Immovable Object.

So I started writing one yesterday. I’ve got three paragraphs. Three more paragraphs than I’ve managed to achieve in the past month. Yay? Sorta?

Anyhoo, I think this book is good, and I’d like to finish writing it. But in order to finish, I think I need a synopsis. There’s that Force/Object conundrum again.

And now off to futz around doing Important Things for the Spouse. Great way to procrastinate.

Megan

PS: CindyS, the Armitage thing is when he’s on Season 7 of MI-5, which is available from Netflix at the end of this month. He plays a spy who’s been captive in Russia for eight years, hence the tats and general bad attitude. Rowr.

So the 10 Year-Old is back in school (Him: “all teachers hate boys.” Me: “All 10 year-old boys make sweeping generalizations.” Him: “Hmmph.”), and I am back in the groove, only it’s cooler, and there are fewer beach days.

I am still loving my bike, I rode 10 miles in the park today and stopped off at the library to pick up a book on cycling (oh! the irony!) for the Spouse. And I am hoping to cobble together some sort of Goal Action Plan, so I don’t waste my days with banal blog posts and such–oh, well, oops.

So there you go. Not much, but it’s something. Oh, and I took a walk to pick the Son up from a playdate and listened to Richard Armitage read Georgette Heyer’s Sylvester. A walk never went by so fast, le swoon. I like that he does little voices for the characters, made me giggle.

Okay, first off, is my entire life RUN BY LYRICS? Because I thought ‘oh, I’m gonna write about something serious, way more substantive than what I usually blather about’ and the first thing that pops into my head is that stupid Jermaine Jackson song! Which I then had to google to discover it was Jermaine who sung it in the first place (not that lazy ass Tito), and now it’s stuck in my head.

But anyway.

Today I wrote, nearly 2000 words, on what I am grandly calling the women’s fiction contemporary. Although it’s really contemporary romance, only it was FOUR–count ‘em four–points of view, so it’s broader than straight contemp, I think. And I am trying to figure out the overriding conflict, and it’s just–the conflict is just LIFE and living it, and my characters muddling through. I need to throw in some extra drama, too, so I am trying to make it about money, which is always a motivating factor.

And the new Park Slope Mom book has just come out, to much excitement, optioned by Sarah Jessica Parker and stuff, and I keep wondering if there are any legs to my Mothering Heights book, which has a similar–albeit not as wide in scope–premise, or if that book is just self-indulgent Megan being funny without an overriding conflict (sense a theme?). My agent likes the book, but doesn’t rep those kinds of books. Not sure what the next step is. Or maybe there is no next step.

Of course I am torn in a gazillion directions, because there’s this shiny historical project that is so much FUN to write, not like this 100+ page thing with no O.C. (shorthand for overriding conflict, you know) with which I am currently wrestling. But the 100+ page thing is good, I think, and funny, and if it works into something bigger, could be a real book.

Blecch. And, as usual, I have to go resume being Mom and save the writer angst until later. Or keep it inside my head where it is normally.

Geez, this is a long post for me, huh? I must be really agitated.

Thanks for letting me share.

I reached my immediate goal of 25,000 words (25,077, actually), and sent it off to the Delightful Phone Friend, who has promised to give me her honest opinion.

Before that, I put in the obligatory appearance at the school picnic, where I stood with other parents and chatted. A lot of chatting. It only felt like I was an inappropriate oddball a few times, thank goodness, and then the Son had a playdate and I tried to catch up on freelance work–the paying job.

And the So Much More Sociable Than I, Although He Wouldn’t Admit It, Not For A Second Spouse is going out tonight, so I’ll be ironing shirts and watching Wire in the Blood. There might be a beer or two involved also.

It’s been a weird day, ’cause I spent way too much time at the computer, and have that vaguely dissatisfied computer feeling when you’ve internet od’ed.

But I did reach the goal. Tomorrow I break ground on the Big, Fun Paranormal Idea, which I have been dying to do (not literally–it’s not that kind of paranormal. I leave the deathy-gruesome stuff to people who can do it much better than I).

Just ate a handful of almonds–why? It’s not like I was hungry. If we could all just manage our emotional eating, we’d be a lot thinner. Or I would, at least.

Anyhoo, I wrote A WHOLE BUNCH today (I unplugged from the internetz!) and this is some of what I did. It makes me laugh. Dunno if it’s any good, but I guess that’s a question for another day.

“The black? With what top?”

Becca frowned, biting her lip. Her face cleared, and she grinned. “I have something you can wear. Hold on,” she said, disappearing into her room.

I walked over to grab the skirt and started shimmying out of my jeans. Thank goodness I never wore Mom jeans, which could also be tagged teacher jeans; us elementary school teachers weren’t exactly renowned for our fashion sense, unless it was for our ability to choose wash’n’wear fabric. I zipped up the skirt and twirled.

“Back. Here,” Becca said, throwing something towards me.

I grabbed it out of the air and held it up. “No way, Becca.”

“You didn’t even try it on yet, Mom! Come on, what are you scared of? If it looks like crap, you don’t have to wear it. Just try it.”

“I can’t.”

“Mom. You can’t be scared of yourself your whole life. This is your big night, you should look as fabulous as you can. And in this,” she said, gesturing towards the top that couldn’t possibly be a medium, could it? “you will look totally fabulous.”

She was right, I couldn’t be scared of myself any longer. I mean, what else was I going to do? I’d been me for so long, and that wasn’t always a good choice. I might as well be me, only with superhuman confidence powers. Like when I was on stage tonight.

Yikes.

Stage.

Me.

Again, and not just playing cover songs at a wedding.

“Okay, let me try it on.” I struggled out of my t-shirt and dropped it on the floor.

“You’ve still got a nice rack, Mom,” Becca said.

“You are not being helpful,” I hissed at her as I began to put the top on.

It was red. Not fire engine red, but a darker cranberry. Which would have been fine, only it was a modified corset that was very low-cut, had tiny little straps holding it up and was done up with small hooks shaped like dragons on the front. And it was made of a stretchy fabric that clung to every part of my body.

Very Forever 21, and I was nearly twice that age.

So, yeah, working. At 22,998 words, but who’s counting?