Dun, dun-dun, DUN!!!!

‎"A black cat crossing your path signifies that the animal is going somewhere." ~ Groucho Marx

Meet Groucho Marx Pavlik! The newest addition to our clowder (which includes a dog and some fish, so I'm not sure what that turns into...a clan, maybe?). He likes lots of catnaps, shiny metal things like the cross or St. Benedict metal I wear around my neck and my cell phone charms, the tv, and my laptop. He also loves to cuddle and purr quite loudly, and to watch the other cats (I think he wishes they would play with him, but they only want to smack him around). A little on the shy side, he pretty much plops down into a ball wherever I put him, or if left to his own whim, the first thing he does is hide...behind a fake tree, under the bed, under the electronics cabinet...behind the toilet...wherever. He's little. He fits about anywhere. He was born in July...no wonder the rescue group named him Leo. I chose his new name while I watched him wrestle with his sister in the cage. All dressed up in tuxedo with a big sweep of white over his lip? How could I not say Groucho? All he needs is a pair of glasses and a cigar. ^_-

I did what now? Oh! Right, right...

My memory sucks. For the most part. Every now and then, it throws something good my way...although, if I didn't forget everything, then the good parts wouldn't be necessary. But hey, I'll take the good with the bad, because it is what it is.

For months upon months, I've been agonizing over the query letter for my first manuscript. A few days ago, I woke up with some fantastic thoughts on the matter and, in my still groggy-state, grabbed the pen and pad off the nightstand and started scribbling. Then I fired up my laptop (all without leaving my bed - my laptop is literally that close to me at all times...almost) and started typing away in a blank document. And then...I opened up the letter's most recent carnation.

Wow. All that agony for nothing. The summary was better than what I had had in my head when I woke up, and the letter itself sounded pretty good. Or, at least it did to me - an agent might think otherwise and tell me stuff it. ^_^

So now that that is all taken care of and I've finished yet another revision of Confessions (and have a copy out for a beta-test - crossing fingers!), I've turned my attention back to The Arrival. It is finally time for the last critique and my thoughts to coalesce in digital form, and I must say, the manuscript is better for it. I'm noticing places where words should be changed, seeing redundancies in the action, and removing just plain unnecessary-ness. The result is cleaner and smoother, and frankly, easier to read. I've been pleasantly surprised. Not only by the results, but by how easy it's been to pick these things out. I truly thought this would be the most difficult revision to date, but really, it's been going well. I've removed nearly 300 words from the starting word count and I'm still in Chapter One.

So, that's where I'll leave it. I'm digging the trenches and don't want to stop. I may not be on a time crunch, but I do want to start querying some day, and some day will never come if I don't get the work done! Cheers!

Music Puts the Mind in Motion...or Not

Nobody does it better
Makes me feel sad for the rest
Nobody does it half as good as you
Baby, you're the best

I wasn't lookin' but somehow you found me
I tried to hide from your love light
But like heaven above me
The spy who loved me
Is keepin' all my secrets safe tonight

Okay, so the song was originally made for The Spy Who Loved Me, one of many awesome Bond movies. (I would say, "Aren't they all?" but really, Timothy Dalton?) BUT, in this case, it's one of the songs on the Mr. and Mrs. Smith soundtrack, and seven of those songs have been in my play list for at least the last week, which also means they've all been stuck in my head at various times. Right now, this would be the one. The other big two are Mondo Bongo and Lay Lady Lay.

None of the songs are like anything that I usually listen to - well, except for Tainted Love, because I do love 80s music. What I've found interesting about my attraction to this OST is that the music makes me feel good. It doesn't hype me up like some of the faster-paced stuff I listen to, or affect my mood like the angry or moody stuff I listen to to help with my writing. Oddly enough, it's almost as relaxing as listening to Beethoven or Ave Maria. I'm soothed and feel at peace. I can forget about everything and just lose myself in the music without any thoughts to interrupt the enjoyment.

That's a rarity for me in music sung in English. All too often, I'll find that I'll like a song until I really listen to the lyrics, and then I don't like it anymore, or I get so caught up in liking the song, that I have to sing along EVERY time I hear it (as is the case with just about every Beastie Boys song out there - what is it about those guys??).

Classical music and the Japanese stuff that I really like give me the freedom to sit back and enjoy the music for the music. There is no meaning behind it other than what I know the composer or musician intended, or the feeling I assign to it. There aren't any words to muddy the way.

Ha ha! And there's where I find my way to tie this post to my writing! A recent critique of my first manuscript went very well. The latter two thirds were great and flowed very well. However, the first third seemed too wordy for her taste. She is, admittedly so, not a "detail" person, and I am a detail writer, so there could be some understandable clashing of style there. But what she had to offer gave me a lot of food for thought (and please pardon the use of a such a cliche...I'm really too tired to come up with something more creative). Too many words really do muddy up the flow of the story and she gave me some perfect examples.

As with any advice, I have to decide how much to follow and how much to drop. Because this is my story to tell and I can't please everyone. Some people like the detail, some don't. I myself enjoy a middle ground. Anne Rice, Stephen King, and Barbara Michaels are all fantastic writers, but sometimes the writing gets bogged down in the details and I find myself skipping whole pages just to get back into the story. This is something that I was very conscientious of as I wrote, and something I thought long and hard about with every redraft as I cut back on more and more detail - removing unnecessary adverbs, rearranging sentences (or paragraphs...or pages), etc.

I'll continue to mull over the insights I've received probably as much as I'll continue to enjoy the music that is so uncharacteristic of me - which, really seems like an odd statement since just about everything is characteristic of me in some way. ^_^

I have time to reach a decision on what to do. I'm not in a rush and right now Confessions has my attention (or it should anyway...my PS3 is a little distracting and I got the latest editions of Bleach and Vampire Knight - YAY!). At least I'm giving it some attention today...Eric's about to commit a full on massacre--probably not something anyone who read the first manuscript would have seen coming. Everyone has a dark side and nobody's perfect - something I deliberately thought about as my characters took form. But that's another post for another time.

Oh...guess what's back on my player? Nobody does it better...baby you're the best. I didn't even notice. ^_^