It's amazing what a few weeks vacation will do for one! I just sat down this morning and wrote ten pages for the novella I'm submitting to Lady Jaided magazine. Ten pages! Because I write only part time, that's a lot for me. I love it! Wish I could do it all the time.

Have a great and safe New Year tonight...and if you play...Play Safe!

Diana

For the past two weeks I've been doing something I haven't done in two years...taking a vacation. Yes, you read that right. While I've gone away with family for weeks at a time, my trusty laptop has always gone with me. This time, however, I haven't gone anywhere...but I haven't written either. This has been the longest spell away from writing that I've taken since Ellora's Cave first accepted Secret Submission. It was needed, believe me.

There are always so many plots and characters vying for my attention, that taking time away from them has been unthinkable. I don't want to lose any of them who might pay a short visit before the Muses pull him or her away and give her or him to someone else. But I've found it difficult to focus these past few months, ever since Cabin Fever was put to bed. In the past 12 weeks I've started and abandoned no fewer than six stories. SIX! And not just a few paragraphs...I've written between 2 and 6K on some of these. Enough to start developing character and plot...enough to introduce conflict and desire!

And yet, each one loses focus...or at least, I lose focus and then the story stops spinning. So I decided, with the holidays approaching, that I would take some time off. Walk away and refresh. And that's exactly what I've been doing. Just enjoying my family, enjoying the bright lights, the shopping and the bustle, the quiet and the scents of church. Just enjoying life.

Today I went so far as to boot up my laptop. It still works. I love the Myst games and got both Myst V for Christmas as well as the soundtrack to the original Myst. While I answered emails and took care of business on the family computer, I listened to the sounds of Myst on my laptop. Didn't write...but have spent several hours today in someone else's world...puzzling out their secrets and learning their culture. Makes me think a fantasy of my own is in my future....

Rest assured, I am not stopping my writing career. I'm having way too much fun to stop. But this time was needed to "sharpen the saw" (thank you Stephen Covey!). Very soon I shall pick up that laptop, sort through the various beginnings I have vomited into files and see if there isn't something there that can be salvaged. If not, I'll start anew. Sort of fitting...a new year...and a new story.

Play safe,
Diana

PS. Ruth won first place in Annie's poll...congrats writing pardner! You're the greatest!!!

And I'm third, for those who wanted to know....LOL... I'll take the bronze!

Wow! If you haven't seen Anne's Page, you need to take a look. She's a great fan of Ellora's Cave books (and others), and next week she's running a poll just for fun. I'm torn, however. While it would do my ego good to see me place in the top three, I really want Ruth Kerce to place first...she's an incredible author and a good friend. Too bad Ruby Storm isn't on the same list...or maybe that's a good thing. The three of us wrote DIAMOND STUDS together and have become great online pals ever since.

You'll note there are now a few links in the sidebar. Sooner or later I'll figure out how to put headings for them, but for now they're just listed with one blog under my own and EC's webpage. I'll get Lauren Dane's and Anne's links up soon. Blog on!

Off to see King Kong...
Diana

I have been playing around with this blog's formatting...trying to add a counter (not successful) and trying to add a set of links along the side (moderate success there). I do not "speak" HTML, but in order to change the look or accoutrements of the blog, it is into the code I must wander.

And wander is a good word for what I do when I get there. "Code," according to Webster's Seventh New Collegiate Dictionary (my favorite edition, copyright 1963) means "a system of words or other symbols arbitrarily used to represent words." I like that word: arbitrarily. It seems so...appropriate. For to me, HTML (HyperText Markup Language, in case you were wondering), is a code in the truest sense of the word. You cannot just read it, you must first understand what each of the signs, symbols and words stand for. User friendly, it ain't.

I love technology. I love the gadgets and gizmos and the ease. Point and click technology is the best thing since sliced bread. And I chose www.blogger.com to host my blog precisely because they have templates and I don't have to do much other than type. But then one looks about and sees all the toys on other people's blogs (if you haven't seen Lauren Dane's, you're missing a real treat) and one wants all that, too!

But "all that" requires HTML knowledge. Sigh. So I've been trying...mostly by trial and error. So if the blog on occasion looks odd, or things don't point quite to the site I meant it to, please bear with me. I added a set of links along the side today and at the bottom of the page, I added a link to a place that will show you who links to my blog. Except the link at the bottom is pointing to someone else's stats...and you have to put my name in the search on the top.

Dinner is ready...and I must go. Life calls. Please forgive the wierdness and check back again later. Perhaps the HTML fairy will have visited and fixed it all.

Play safe,
Diana

PS. Okay, I successfully moved the "who links to me" link to the sidebar (Yay for me!) and it now points to me, and not some other dude (whew!). Off to try and limit the archive list that seems inordinately long....