Just when you think you have a plan...
...everything changes.Well, maybe not everything, but enough to make me step back, switch gears, and start again. Up until Monday, I had been working on a novel that would've been a pretty major departure from THE BELLY DANCER. But after getting some great feedback from my editor and some soul-searching, I realize that's probably just not the best way to go just yet. So, I'm going back to a story I started working on several months ago and set aside. It's in a similar vein to THE BELLY DANCER, though a little different time and milieu. And you know what? I'm already feeling so much better about this direction. I'd had reservations about that other idea th

NaNoWriMo Update
I'm still toiling away on NaNowriMo -- pretty much keeping up with the daily min. to get myself to 50K at the end of the month. One thing that is frustrating me a bit is that my pages seem more like a freewrite exercise than novel pages. I'm finding myself writing off on tangents about character backstory and I know I'm not going to keep these in, but I feel like I have to write them to get them out of my system (and to better understand the characters) before I can write bona fide novel pages. So the word count is pretty much there, but the progress? Not so much. My attempt at being a pantser isn't working out as well as I'd hoped, so eventually I'm going to have to

Guest post: Terence Hawkins, author of THE RAGE OF ACHILLES
Terence Hawkins’ debut novel, THE RAGE OF ACHILLES, a modern retelling of the THE ILIAD, debuted earlier this month. It "has the paradoxical, invigorating effect of making Homer's epic feel oddly familiar, and of highlighting its deep strangeness at the same time," says Tom Perrotta, author of LITTLE CHILDREN.

4th day of NaNoWriMo
I have a whole new level of respect for people who accomplish the goal of writing 50,000 words in a month. Yesterday was the first day I even reached the daily minimum of 1,667 words (just a tad over, actually). The first two days? Not even close. So I'm already behind.

I'm hanging out at Caroline Leavitt's place today...
Come by and say hi. We're talking about THE BELLY DANCER and the 1893 Chicago World's Fair and Little Egypt and some other fun stuff...http://carolineleavittville.blogspot.com/2009/10/read-this-book-belly-dancer.htmlHurry before all the cookies and chocolates are gone :-)