Music Monday

All right. Today was the kind of day that smelled like barley soup and wet wildflowers. Could it get any better?

A poem? By one of the loveliest poets of the last century, Elizabeth Bishop? Why I do believe that this day just improved!

Hidden, oh hidden 
in the high fog 
the house we live in, 
beneath the magnetic rock, 
rain-, rainbow-ridden, 
where blood-black 
bromelias, lichens, 
owls, and the lint 
of the waterfalls cling, 
familiar, unbidden.


We have rain, rainbows and OWLS-universal symbol of all things fall and back-to-schoolish. 


So...about the rain. I had an impressive list from my brilliant lovely sister-in-law musical type, and one of them was this:

Sheer loveliness. Time to go for a bike ride! Man! I'm also reminded of all the seventies fashion that's going on right now. What do you think about it? There's a sweetheart neckline prairie dress that I'm thinking about creating. 

Music Monday

All right. Because I'm interested in random things and there was a lovely article in a crafty mag that was all about artists' rights and the way the internet is like rain, I've been asking on and off what songs people think about when they're looking for a rain song. The interesting thing about this, other than that I ask people weird questions, is that NO ONE had the same answer. I was certain that if I asked a broader circle of people I could get A favorite, but no luck. There were no same answers. So, I decided that we need to do a full exploration of rain songs.

#1 Eddie Rabbitt, I love a Rainy Night, Frankly, one of the happiest rain dance songs known to man. (My DH informs me that I shouldn't put 'known to man' because it's sexist. I informed him that I could too. Aren't I liberated?:)

If you've got a rain song that I haven't heard of(likely considering my current feedback) please let me know. Oh, and Natascia, I tried to comment on your comment but was once again rejected. It's sad too because it was an oh sooooo clever and witty and non whiny comment.;)

And don't you love my flowers and fall show? I'm feeling yellow in spite of all the rain. Let the dancing commence!

Best Review Ever

I have to say, I was blown away by this review. The graphics alone had me. That twisty whirly thing? Yep. Exactly what my mind looks like:)

http://insatiablereaders.blogspot.com/2011/09/hotbloods-house-of-slide-novel-by.html

Very excited about it. Thanks so much Insatiable Reader!!!


(happy reading:)

Vanish and other second books I like to whine about

I've been having the most difficult time with most second books. I'm writing book two of The House of Slide, or I should say, I'm rewriting my rewrite's rewrite, because I've been reading second books in series that have problems I'm trying to avoid. This always surprises me (I don't know why because I realize it ALL the time), but it's harder to write a book than to read it which makes me as a reader overly critical of me as an author. The biggest problems that I've had, and that other books with second books that disappointing are;


Whining. Stuff sucks, and the character is overwhelmed, the author is overwhelmed, and so everything's bleak and there's whining. And more whining (I think authors are whiny as a group. I am demonstrating this trait with my current whining about whining:).

Second problem is having fixed points that the characters must navigate to achieve the ultimate goals at the end of the series without having schizophrenic characters in the duration. Very difficult to do when something must happen but how to make the characters do it naturally? First books do not suffer from this because the ending is open. Next book, less so. (I'm hoping third books are not as difficult because so many books have sluggish hard to read middle books that are simply lovely at the end. Hmm. I'm wondering if that has something to do with the growth the author has writing the tricky sequel. One way to find out)

Third thing is pacing. The book usually drags while the character whines and then the action is all crammed into the end. Love triangles make this much worse and more likely.

Cliffhangers are the inevitable result of a book where the author gave up trying to make anything rational and is relying on the last book to save her. Sigh. Knowing the problems should help one avoid them, right? Um, we'll see. Sigh. (Sighing is a clever disguise for whining:)